


A Bunch of Maps and Mishaps

by comixandco



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Draco being a little shit, Gen, Human!Nagini, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Period-Typical Racism, Slight Historical Inaccuracy, black!Hermione, black!harry, human!Basilisk, tiny bits of gore but nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4991884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comixandco/pseuds/comixandco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After realizing how spoiled and bratty his son Draco really is, Lucius Malfoy sends him aboard a ship to gain some experience. However, the last thing he expected (that he really should have, considering Draco's luck) was for Draco to get kidnapped by pirates and dragged into an all-out pirate war to defeat the Dark Pirate Lord Voldemort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Draco is a little shit, and Lucius makes a decision

As the son of a successful sea merchant, Draco Malfoy had been able to have many luxuries throughout his childhood. His mother had barely left his side. His father bought his affections. The world was his oyster.

This is what he knew when he woke up in his silk sheets and stretched, yawning widely. It was what he thought as he washed his face in the basin and a servant opened his curtains, letting the warmth sunlight warm him. It was what he believed as he sat down for breakfast with his mother and father. It was what he told himself as he made polite conversation with them. It was what he told his best friend Blaise around an hour later, as they looked across the docks, sat on some rocks not too far from his manor house.

"The world is my oyster, Blaise," he grinned.

"Sure." Blaise rolled his eyes. His entire family was currently in employment to the Malfoy family - his mother and elder sister as maids (the former Narcissa Malfoy's personal maid), his younger sister as an assistant cook, his father on one of the Malfoy's many trading ships, and himself being Draco's... butler. That was his official title, anyway, however it wasn't as such that he looked after Draco, but just kept him company, took the fall for him, and made sure he didn't die.

"Amused, Blaise?" Draco said, smirking. "It's true. This island, everybody follows my fathers orders and one day it will be mine. All of it." He pulled his shirt off and lay back, basking in the Caribbean sun.

"You shouldn't be doing that. You burn too easily." Blaise grumbled, but did nothing to stop him. "And how can you be so sure? Theo Nott's father is governor, not Lucius."

"Ah, but for how much longer?" Draco laughed. "My father is bringing in way too much money for the crown; they'll have to reward him somehow."

"And how will you run the business when it's yours? You know fuck all about the sea."

"A bunch of maps and maths, Blaise. That's all it'll be." He sat up and looked past the docks to the sea. "Trust me, Zabini. My future is spread out before me like the ocean, and..." his roaming eyes caught sight of Pansy Parkinson, skinny-dipping with her friends. "I like what I see."

* * *

Lucius Malfoy's son was a spoiled brat.

In fact, one could even say he'd been a spoiled brat all his life. As his son, Draco had had many opportunities that others couldn't afford. His mother had coddled him, and Lucius could admit, reluctantly, that he'd given the boy too much. And he'd turned into a little shit.

This was what he knew when his wife awoke him with a kiss. It was what he thought as he brushed back his long, almost-white hair and smiled slyly into the mirror. It was what he'd rather not think about as Draco sauntered into the dining room. It is what he admitted to himself as his son prattled on about things that hardly mattered. It was what he admitted to his wife soon after, as they took tea in the library.

"Our son's a little shit, Narcissa," he groaned, rubbing his eyes.

"Lucius!" His wife gasped, not appreciating her husband's vocabulary.

"It's true. He's a spoiled brat. We've been giving him too much, and expecting too little in return." He stretched back on his seat.

"He's just a boy, Lucius."

"Dammit Narcissa!" Lucius slammed his hands on the coffee table. "That 'boy' is well over the age I was when I inherited the company from my father. I have enough to worry about, what with those blasted pirates..."

"I thought you made a deal with them? To protect your ships?" Narcissa was genuinely concerned. Despite the fact that her sisters and their families sailed the seas, Narcissa had never been fond of the ocean - it made her seasick - so she didn't fully understand the finer points of piracy.

"With Voldemort - yes. But Dumbeldore's fleet? For as long as I am in league with the Dark Pirate Lord, I am a target."

"Then stop allying yourself with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!"

"I can't... Dumbledore attacks fleets, but... Voldemort does much worse... But, that isn't our topic of concern, currently. We were talking of our son." Lucius stood up, and walked over to one bookcases that lined the walls. "I don't plan to die for a long time yet, Narcissa. But that doesn't mean I won't. And if I do, I need to know the business will be left in good hands."

"You've been coaching Draco in business since he could talk."

"And if I dealt with business on land, I would leave it at that. But, I do not. The boy needs to understand the waves." Lucius sighed. "I travelled on the HMS Slytherin myself for several years, it is how I keep the peace with my captains. I understand them, and they respect me."

"They shall respect our son, as well."

"Draco?" Lucius scoffed. "Not even the Zabini's respect him! They respect the cat more than him! The only reason the son keeps him company is because I pay him extra at the end of the week!"

Narcissa looked horrified at the information. "No..."

"I'm sorry, Narcissa. But... I believe it is best for the boy to spend a couple of months on one of my ships, the Endeavor."

"But, Lucius... What about the pirates?" Narcissa asked, looking at him desperately.

"The ship's current route is through waters which are rarely attacked. Besides, I would trust Captain Yaxley with my life." He pulled a book from the shelf and stroked the leather cover. "It's what's best for Draco."

"If you say so." Nacissa conceeded, also standing. "We'll tell him tonight, I suppose? During dinner?"

* * *

Draco didn't take the news well.

He screamed, he yelled and he hurled abuse at his parents. He held his breath until he turned blue. He pulled the books from the wall and punched the wall. He poured the soup from it's bowl and smashed the china on his chair. He stormed out into the garden and ruined his mother's flowers. He came back in and yelled some more. But it was the spitting, however, that was the last straw for Lucius's temper.

Lucius grabbed him by his collar and pushed him against the wall. "Listen here, boy. You are a man of class, and you are behaving like a heathen. You are boarding that ship, and no matter how many tantrums you throw, this will not change!"

"You never cared about me, you elvish sodomite!" Draco howled. "You never loved me! You were just waiting to get rid of me, you big-nosed son of a bitch!"

Lucius slapped Draco's cheek. "You dare to talk to me that way? My riches, my hard work, are the reasons you live the way you do!"

"That doesn't matter! I didn't ask to be born into this selfish, uncaring family! You didn't ask if I wanted this! So you don't get to choose my fate!"

"So you choose not to inherit the Malfoy fortune? That can easily be arranged!" Lucius thundered back.

Draco looked shocked, and lowered his gaze to the floor, spitting out, "I never said that, did I?"

Lucius let go of his shirt. "Then you will be going on that ship, and we will say no more on this topic."


	2. In which Draco learns that money can't fix everything, and struggles to get used to life aboard a ship

Draco's first day on the Endeavour was less than enjoyable. The constant rocking of the boat made him feel sick to his stomach. He wasn't given any time to adjust, however, and was thrown right into work. His father hadn't been kind; he'd told Captain Yaxley that he could put Draco to any work he wanted.

Before they had left the harbor the Captain had given Draco some advice. "At the moment the crew only know you as the boss's son." He fixed Draco with a hard stare. "That isn't a good place to be. You're some pompous, arrogant dick to them. Most of them hate dicks. Some of them enjoy it - I'm not going to judge, but the fact remains that they aren't going to like you, and you'll have to prove your worth. I'm making it so that the more popular you are, the higher up you'll be!" He chuckled. "Not that you'll be Quartermaster, of course... If you get that popular, you can help me account and take inventory."

Now, Draco had been sure it wouldn't be too bad. He'd splash his money about and he'd be in the Captain's Quarters in no time.

But it wasn't like that at all. The crew were already getting enough money, and weren't thinking about making extra on the side. The fact that Draco thought he could take the easy way out only made them dislike him more.

His first official day at sea began at half five in the morning, by which time the island Draco called home was already just a speck on the horizon behind them. The Sun wasn't even out when Draco was pulled from his hammock, where he had been peacefully dreaming. He hit the rocking floor of the ship with a thump, and he groaned. He opened his eyes and glared at the sailor who had woken him.

Through the dim lights, Draco could see that he was large, and muscly, with small eyes and a large nose. His sleeves were ripped, and he wasn't wearing any shoes.

"What was that about?" Draco seethed, glaring up at the man.

"Been trying to wake you up for thirty minutes." The man said. "The others all left. Get up now, or you'll miss breakfast."

"Oh." Draco attempted to pick himself off the floor, but struggled to gain his balance. His companion gave him an audible sigh and yanked Draco up by his collar as if he weighed nothing at all. Draco rubbed his neck where the man's hand had been, but thanked him. "Ah, let me just get changed into some new clothes..."

The sailor gave a short laugh. "Those're yer only pair."

"What?!"

* * *

Draco wasn't impressed by breakfast, either. He was used to eggs and bacon, sausages and bread, not...

"What is this, anyway?" Draco scoffed, tapping the sloshing bowl of grey muck.

"Breakfast." Replied a sailor gruffly. The mans thick hands were wrapped around his bowl like a wolf holding onto it's kill.

"Yes, but what is it? Some kind of soup?" His nose wrinkled. It smelt of dishwater.

"'S porridge." Another grunted. "An' the best meal yer'll be getting' fer a while, so eat up."

Draco looked down at his 'food', an uninspiring grey, watery dish of water with worrying lumps in it.

"Lunch an' tea'll be better!" An over-the-top Cockney accent noted helpfully, out of nowhere. Draco looked at the small boy in front of him, who had been silent until now. He was tiny - and looked about ten, or eleven, not old enough to be on a ship in Draco's personal opinion. "And all the best food goes to the people at the top."

Draco sneered. "Who are you?"

"I'm Colin Creevey. I've only been on this ship a month, but..."

"I don't need your advice, Creevey." Draco cut in, standing up and leaving, deciding that it wasn't worth eating the food and that he could wait until later. The young boy eyed Draco's food eagerly, and reached for it, but another sailor snatched it up and glared at the small boy.

"Don't even think of it."

* * *

A couple of hours later, Draco was beginning to regret not having his breakfast, however disgusting it looked. The Sun was up now, and the heat was blistering. Fresh water was rare here, so most of the crew drank rum. Lucius had taken Yaxley aside before they had left, however, and instructed him that Draco was only allowed to drink water, and had supplied Yaxley with more water than usual so that there would be enough for Draco to drink. Lucius had said that Draco hadn't gotten drunk before, and he wasn't too keen on letting him start. Therefore, Draco had been given a flask of water just after sun-up, and told it would be refilled at the end of the day.

It was already half empty, and it wasn't even mid-day.

To start him off, the Quartermaster had given Draco a 'small, easy' job - to swab the deck with saltwater to keep it swelled and tight. Though Draco had been slightly thankful for not having to do any hard labor, he was still angry about having to do any labor at all. And the work was still strenuous.

From his position, he could see what was going on around the ship. Some of the sailors were tying and untying ropes, and some of them sat around doing nothing for a while, before going down below deck. The small brat Draco had met earlier, Creepy, Draco thought his name might have been, was particularly interesting to watch. He darted back and forth across the ship, nipping below deck before hopping back out and sprinting to the other end. He hardly seemed to stop moving, aside from when a member of the crew would grab him and say something to him - give him an order, perhaps? The boy would answer with a sloppy grin, nod and dart off. Sometimes he would dart around the ship calling some random persons name, finding them and parroting words to them before disappearing below deck again. Sometimes he would stop by a sailor and watch what they were doing with rapt attention, and the sailor would show him how he was doing it. Draco despised how chirpy and eager the boy was about his job.

At around half ten, as Draco was wiping the sweat from his brow, Creepy skidded to a halt next to him. "D'you want some help with that mate?"

Draco sneered at him. "No, I don't need some small kids help."

"It's no bother, honestly!" The boy ignored him, grabbing another mop. "I don't have anything to do right now, Captain Yaxley told me to help in the kitchen, but that can wait until midday they won't be really needing my help for a while, so I'm free to help you!"

"I don't want help."

"It'll be quicker if we work together!"

Draco groaned and stopped mopping, swinging round to face the boy. "Look, I don't really want to be here. All I have to do is do my fair share of work and then I'm home free right? My father will hear how much work I've done and think it's alright for me to go back, so I'm just going to do that. If you help me, he'll just think I'm shirking off."

The boy looked at him. "You're on here to learn how to be a leader, right?"

"Yes."

"Well how can you lead people if you aren't willing to work with them?" Draco scowled.

"Leadership isn't about working with people, it's about telling them what to do."

"I think you're wrong."

"I don't give a fuck what you think." Draco momentarily wondered whether he should be swearing in front of the kid, he was so small he was probably 8 years old or something, but he figured he'd heard worse during his time at sea. He took another swig of his water and returned to work.

"That's fair enough, but a good leader always listens to the opinions of their crew!" The boy chirped. "If you're sure you'll be okay, then I trust your judgement." He sounded a little sad, but Draco firmly told himself not to be empathetic. "I'll go pester Sebastian and see if he'll show me how to steer the ship!"

The kid dropped the mop and scampered off, leaving Draco to swab the deck alone, with only one mouthful of water left to keep him hydrated until lunch or dinner, whenever they would be.

* * *

Lunch was given to him soon after - if you could call it lunch. It was really just a hard cracker-like thing. Draco didn't like it, it tasted dry and salty and wasn't helping his slow de-hydration, but he was so starving he had to eat it.

It began to get slightly colder as the day went on, and the sun set just after seven o'clock. The kid - Draco had forgotten his name completely by now - had dashed below deck soon after he'd eaten lunch, and Draco didn't see him again until around eight o'clock, when he popped his head up from the stairs and told everybody dinner was ready.

Draco hadn't finished his job, but he was so hungry and thirsty that he dropped his mop and went to follow everybody down to eat. However, his shoulder was grabbed by the strong grip of the Quatermaster.

"Where d'you think yer goin'?" He asked, glaring at Draco. Draco mustered up a glare back.

"I'm going to have dinner. I'm starving." He replied. The sailor huffed.

"Not until you finish your job, you don't. I gave you the task of swabbing the deck. Does this deck look swabbed?"

"Most of it does."

"And if the parts that aren't get splashed by a wave, yer'll be the one apologisin' to the crew that gets wet? Yer'll pay fer any damage that happens to the val-u-bels?" The large man growled. Draco wondered if he and that cabin boy where the only ones on the ship that didn't lift whales in their spare time. "Finish swabbing the deck, and then y'can eat."

The Quatermaster shoved Draco backwards gruffly and lumbered down to have dinner. Draco muttered a string of profanity as he roughly grabbed the mop and continued his job. He cursed his father for sending him off on the ship, his mother for not standing up for him, Blaise for not coming with him, Captain Yaxley for making him do this type of work, the Quatermaster for giving him this work, and that stupid kid that had left him to do it on his own. By this point, Draco had completely forgotten that he had been the one to turn the small, helpful boy away. The stars that were beginning to twinkle in the sky did nothing to make Draco feel at peace.

* * *

Half an hour later he was done, more or less. There wasn't anybody around to tell him whether he'd done a good job or not, so he decided that he was done and went below deck. The room where they'd eaten breakfast was empty, and a plate with a pile of what looked like wet straw sat on a table alone, with only a blunt fork of... questionable hygiene to keep it company. Draco was nervous about eating it, but too hungry to complain about it's appearance. Besides, there was nobody there to complain to. The food was sour and Draco winced as he forced it down his throat. That boy had told him the food would be better at dinner, but he had lied. Either that or they'd given him this shit instead of actual food.

Either way, Draco was more tired than he had been in his life. He dragged himself back to the bunk where he'd gotten up this morning. The room stunk and everybody was snoring; Draco was reminded of a pack of sleeping wolves.

As he got into bed, he heard a tiny voice call out to him. "Draco, is that you? Sorry about you having to eat later, I did offer to help... D'you want my help tomorrow? I tried to keep some of the meat for you, but Jugson wouldn't let me. Are you okay?"

Draco was too tired to make a remark about how he was not okay, he was not okay at all, and just flopped over onto the hammock... which tipped, and he fell out with a thump. Draco groaned.

"Are you okay, Draco?"

"Fuck off kid."


	3. In which Draco talks to Yaxley

The next couple of days aboard the Endeavor were only slightly better than Draco's first. He was shown how to do other things around the ship, like tying simple knots, but nobody really trusted him to tie anything down. Draco had learnt his lesson, and ate each meal that was given to him, however his stomach was so unused to the horrible food that he normally threw up over the side of the ship by the afternoon. Some of the sailors found his weak stomach amusing, but others complained amongst themselves about how Draco was only wasting food they could have eaten.

The weather had been, for the most part, hot and sunny, without a cloud in the sky - a sight many of the sailors were thankful for. Draco was too, even though his skin was blistered and red; he didn't think he would be able to handle a storm this early in his journey.

The cabin boy, whose name still escaped Draco, seemed to be staying away from him since Draco had told him to fuck off. Or maybe he was just too busy to come and talk to him. Draco didn't care either way, he wasn't on the ship to make friends.

One too-hot afternoon, as Draco sat on the roasting boards of the deck practicing some knots (a task the Quatermaster had said would 'keep him out of trouble for a while'), the small cabin boy appeared in front of him again. "Hello Draco!"

Draco looked up at the boy, narrowing his eyes. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to come by and say hi!" The boy laughed. "There doesn't have to be a reason for everythin', y'know!" He waited for Draco to say something, and when he didn't, he began to speak again. "Me and some of the others don't have anything to do right now, so we were thinking of playing some Liars Dice t' pass the time. Would you like to join us?"

"I'm kind of busy at the moment." Draco dismissed, holding his rope slightly higher to make sure the boy could see it.

"It's not like the Quatermaster will notice if you don't do it!" The boy rolled his eyes. "It's not an important job; heckers, it's not even a job, it's just a task to pass the time! I can show you how to tie a specific knot if he wants you to show him something before tea..."

"No thanks." Draco looked back down at his knot, avoiding the kid's eyes. Why couldn't he understand Draco just wanted to be left alone?

"Oh... okay..." Draco tried to ignore how sad the boy sounded. "If you're sure you don't want to play, I can't force you. We'll be just over there if you change your mind though." There was the sound of footfalls and Draco assumed he'd finally left.

Around half an hour later, Draco's curiosity got the better of him. He looked up, nonchalantly, as if he was checking whether it was still sunny, to see where the cabin boy and some of the sailors were. They sat in the small parts of shade the ship still had, on the opposite side of the deck. They were crouched round, in a circle formation. Each person had a wooden cup that they were holding, shaking, checking, covering. Then one person would say something, and they would each say something in return. Eventually, somebody would say something else and they'd all look excited and uncover their cups. After that, the person who said something would either cheer and gather up a pile of silver coins set in the middle, or everybody else would laugh, and the money would be gathered by the person who had spoken before him.

Oh. They were gambling. Draco hadn't thought that the cabin boy was that kind of kid. But then again, what did he know? There was no point playing either way, Draco decided, since he didn't have any money with him. Unlike the crew, Draco wasn't getting paid, since the money that would be given to him was his families anyway, and he didn't really need money. Yaxley had told him that he could have a little 'pocket money' when they docked in a harbour if he wanted, but they hadn't docked yet. Draco wasn't sure what he'd spend the money on anyway.

At that moment, the boy looked up and grinned at him, beckoning him over. Draco shook his head frantically, glaring at him for good measure. The boy rolled his eyes, said something to the men, and... lost most of his money. Draco realized that he couldn't ask the boy how to play either, since he seemed so damn bad at it.

Shortly after that moment, the Quatermaster came by, and told Draco to go below deck and help make dinner. Draco nodded, glad to get out of the sun.

The person who cooked normally depended on what day it was. On that day (Draco had lost track of the days of the week), it was a man named Macnair, who's greasy almost-black hair was tied back into a small ponytail. He looked up quickly when Draco entered the storage, his lip curling.

"The Quatermaster sent me down to help you make the food." Draco said, his voice raising a couple of octaves.

Macnair gave a short nod, and returned to what he was doing.

"Um... what should I do?"

"Ain't much to be done." Macnair muttered. "Meat's almost rotten. Was on it's way out when they gave it to us. I can tell these things."

"So..."

"We'll be havin' the meat today. An' a bit of the cheese. Maybe a biscuit... Boy!" Macnair's voice rose sharply, and Draco jumped.

"Wha-yes?"

"Go to the Captain and ask him when we'll be at port next. We'll restock there."

"Okay." Draco nodded and headed back up the stairs. He crossed the deck to where the Captain would be calculating profits and pouring over maps of the ocean, just behind a slightly ajar door...

It would be the first time he spoke to Captain Yaxley since they'd boarded the ship.

Draco knocked on the door.

"Come in," the Captain's voice sounded no different from when they had boarded the ship. Draco wondered why he'd expected it to be. He opened the door fully and slipped in, closing it behind him. Yaxley looked up from his desk, where he was, indeed, looking over a map of the ocean. A couple of pieces of parchment were unrolled beside it, blotted with ink jottings Draco didn't fully understand. "Ah, Draco!" The Captain grinned, and moved the papers so Draco couldn't see them, before walking over to Draco to clap him on the back. His hand hit a particularly sunburnt patch of skin between Draco's shoulder blades, and Draco held back a wince.

"Hello, sir." He replied, smiling warily.

"It's good to see you. You know, I meant to call you in before, but I completely forgot! Come on, come sit down, I bet you're exhausted," Yaxley gestured to one of the few seats in the cabin, a chair just like the others on the ship, except it had a small, probably fluffy, pillow on it's cover. Draco almost sighed as he sat down, glad for the comfort, across from the (more luxurious) seat the Captain sat on. "I was right then, I see! So," the Captain looked at Draco with a mixture of seriousness and amusement in his eyes, "how's life for you on my beauty, huh?"

A million complaints sprung to Draco's mind at once, however he couldn't bring himself to say them now that the Captain was sitting in front of him so informally. "I-it's... okay. It's good, yeah, it's fine."

Captain Yaxley laughed loudly. "So, you're settling in all right then. Or should I say, all red." He laughed again. "Look at your skin, kid! I can tell you don't spend often in the sun!" Draco shook his head, looking down. "Ay, don't worry about it though. Your skin'll get used to the sun soon enough, and in the meantime..." Yaxley stood, walking over to a chest. He bent down, rummaging through it. "Ah, I know it's in here somewhere... Aha!"

He stood up, waving something victoriously in his firm grip. He turned to Draco and handed the item to him. It was a glass jar of something semi-transparent, that had a blue tinge to it. Draco carefully tried to open the jar... and failed, since the lid was stuck on too tight for him. Draco's eyes narrowed as the Captain laughed again, taking it back to open it, so Draco could look inside.

Once the jar was open, a horrible scent filled the room. It smelt like the polish on the candlesticks in the Malfoy's dining room, crossed with whatever 'food' the crew had been eating for the past few weeks, as well as several other less than pleasant things. Apprehensively, Draco placed a finger inside the jar. The liquid was thick, and sticky, and Draco quickly pulled his finger out, wiping it on his trousers. A purple stain formed where he wiped the substance off, and Draco felt like throwing up. "Um... thank you?"

"Ay, don't thank me yet." Yaxley sat back down, spreading his legs and stretching his arms as he leant backwards. "That there is the best skin protector I've yet to find. Put that on in the morning, and you'll have none of this reddy, blistery, skin curling stuff. And soon, yer skin'll be resistant to the sun just like the rest o'ours." Draco opened his mouth to say a half-hearted thank you again, but the Captain suddenly sat straight, like he'd just thought of something. "Now, wait a minute, was there a reason you came to see me, boy? Y'know, I'm very busy."

"Yes!" Draco said, glad to get off the topic of his skin. While the Captain was distracted, he placed the jar down and kicked it under the seat. "The cook guy, uhhhhh Mac and Hair..."

"Macnair!" Yaxley laughed again.

"Uh, yeah, Macnair... he asked me to come ask you when we're docking again, because we're running out of food that's still edible."

"Hm." Yaxley got up and walked over to the map, looking it over. "Hey, for the son of a sea merchant, you ain't too good at talking t'people with confidence, are yah?"

Draco felt a tidal wave of irritation wash over him. "Hey! I'm just trying to be polite, you know! In fact, I don't know why I'm even bothering, since you're right: My father is a sea merchant, he's the boss of you, which means that I am above you, so I'm only being polite because of how I was brought up and how I was taught that manners are everything, something your crew seems to lack..."

Yaxley cut him off with another laugh. "Ah, there's the pompous rich boy attitude Bruce was telling me about. Don't go bad mouthing my crew; they may not be the most eloquent of bastards, but they're a family. You could be a part of it as well, y'know..."

"I don't want to be." Draco said stiffly, crossing his arms. Yaxley laughed again; a sound Draco was beginning to tire of.

"Ay, y'do what you want." Yaxley pointed at a blot of green ink as he muttered to himself. "We could go there, I s'ppose... If Bellatrix or one of the others ain't taken all of it yet... God knows they never replace anythin' they take... It's worth checking out though." He grinned at Draco. "Okay, tell Macnair that we'll be stoppin' off at Twelve Stone Bay in a day or two, an' if there's any food there 'e can take it all."

"Okay, sir, Twelve Stone Bay, got it." Draco stood to leave, half sad to leave the cushion behind. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. "Um... Yaxley?"

"What is it, kid?" Yaxley was picking up the parchments he'd hidden earlier.

"Well, it's just that..." Draco couldn't believe he was saying this. "I saw some of the crew playing a game earlier, and I'd like to... play with them? I guess? But, uh... I kind of would need money to play, I think, so..."

"They're gambling, are they? Lucius wouldn't like that..." Yaxley snorted. "Then again, Lucius won this very ship in a lucky hand of poker, so he can't say anything about it!" Yaxley shoved his hand into a coat pocket and threw a leather pouch at Draco. "There y'go, kid, knock yourself out. Except don't, I'd get in trouble with your dad... And don't gamble it all off at once, you'll risk the chance of losing it all, and I ain't giving you any more." Yaxley laughed. "Go make your fortune!"


	4. In which Draco gains a friend, and then looses them within the space of a day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the main reason I added in the racism tag, because Lucius is an ass. So, if you aren't comfortable with it, you can skip the section with Lucius being an ass if you want- it begins with 'The businessman's eyes narrowed' and ends with the end of that paragraph. (Of course, if you want, you can skip the whole of the italicised section, but it includes cute children being friends, and who would want to miss out on that??)

After telling Macnair that they would soon be stopping at Twelve Stone Bay, Draco escaped back into the Sun. He was already regretting taking the initiative to tell Yaxley he wanted to play this game... soon everybody on the ship would probably know, and if Draco hadn't approached the cabin boy by that time he would look like a coward and a fool...

"Hullo Draco!" Draco cursed inside his mind. It was like the kid was the fucking devil. He turned around, plastering a smile onto his face.

"Hi... you." He dragged out the words, yelling at himself for not knowing the kids name. Now he sounded like a shit. I mean, he was a shit, but he had way too much confidence in himself to admit it. Apparently the kid was also ignorant of the fact, as he just laughed. Draco had the feeling that the people on this ship were too happy, everybody was laughing too often.

"Um, a lot of the others had to get to work again because Bruce- he's the Quatermaster, if you didn't know- yelled at them, but me and Jack still don't have anything to do... We wanted to continue our game of Liar's Dice, but it's no fun when there are just two people playing, and I know you didn't want to play the game earlier but I was wondering if you happened to have changed your mind...?" The words jumped out of the kids mouth like there were bees flying around in his stomach.

"Yes." Draco answered, too quickly. "Uh, I mean, sure, whatever, I guess I have a bit of free time until dinner." The boy looked up at Draco, his large child eyes sparkling, and Draco tried to avoid his gaze. His eyes were too big, his smile too toothy, his... entire being too innocent and cute. Draco could feel a horrible feeling in the bottom of his stomach, a feeling he'd felt only once before when he was younger...

* * *

_Draco frowned in concentration as he stood on his tip-toes, grasping a wooden brick firmly in his outstretched hand. He was planning to build a tall tower, and then his Princess doll would be stuck in it, and his Pirate doll would rescue her for the reward but would end up falling in love with her anyway... His Auntie 'Meda had sent him the bricks for Christmas, but the dolls had been special gifts from his Daddy. His Mummy had knitted several different outfits for the Princess, and Draco had chosen this dress especially because it was... He stopped abruptly as the doors to his playroom opened, eyes widening in anticipation. It was Daddy! Daddy always had something nice for Draco with him; maybe he'd brought Draco a Wizard to go with his Princess and Pirate! Daddy's lips were pursed in a tight frown, but in his hand swung a brown paper bag. It looked big enough to have a Wizard doll in it... Draco dropped the brick onto the carpet, and shuffled over to his Daddy._

_Lucius Malfoy didn't bother to bend down; he held the bag out to his son, who grabbed the bag eagerly. His tiny, toothy smile faltered for a short second as he opened the bag, but it soon came back, twice as big as before. "Sweeties, Daddy! Thank you!" Lucius ruffled his son's hair briefly as the small brat shoved a chubby hand into the bag and stuffed a sweet into his mouth. The business man's eyes narrowed as he saw the scruffy child sat in the corner of the room. He recognised him; of course he recognised him. Bem Zabini's son. The same Bem Zabini that had just recently 'lost' all of Lucius's cargo somewhere between Cape Coast and the Suez Canal. The same Bem Zabini who criticised Lucius's choice of what he bought and sold as though his opinion mattered in the slightest. His lip curled and he walked over to the boy, who looked up as Lucius approached, and bowed quickly._

_"I bet your father couldn't even afford to buy you a lick of the sweets my son has. If he could, maybe he wouldn't be forcing his children into jobs just to pay for the straw above his head. Then again, if he hadn't caused so many unwanted, worthless accidents he'd be able to live in a tenth of the luxury we do. My family deserves this lifestyle, I have worked hard for everything we have, and you can tell your father that the Malfoy family is twice as pure as his family could ever hope to be. I bet your heart is as pure as the filthy colour of your skin. You're lucky I gave you this job, that Draco needs somebody to keep him company and look out for him. Though I suppose a dog could look after him just as well. Even the most diseased dog would probably be cleaner than you anyway, slave." Lucius's tone became more scathing as he spat each word out. The entire family made him sick. If it hadn't been for Narcissa's insistence that they hire the boy as "Silvy's so stretched as it is, with Bem's wages as low as they are and everything...", Lucius wouldn't have hired the boy at all. Nor his sister. Every word that left Lucius's mouth was doing wonders for his temper, however. Maybe he should visit Zabini's bastard child more often; this experience had been very therapeutic. He turned and left the room, patting Draco on the head before he exited, telling him to 'be a good gentleman' and that he'd see him at dinner._

_Draco was unaware of anything that had been going on around him until the door shut once again, too busy eating his sweets and lamenting the loss of the Wizard doll that would never be his. It wasn't fair! Draco never got anything he wanted! His hand shook around inside the bag, trying to find the last, elusive treat that was hiding in the corner of the bag... Aha! There it was. His fingers enclosed around it and he was about to place it on his tongue when he heard a sound he rarely heard from other people._

_It was the sniff of a runny nose. And a whimper._

_Draco turned to see a young boy crouched in the corner with his arms around his knees. He was crying. Draco vaguely remembered his mother introducing them earlier that week. His name was... Basil or something, and he'd come to play with Draco and keep him company, but Draco realised that he hadn't been doing much of that. Maybe it was Draco's fault. He hadn't exactly approached the boy._

_Before now._

_"Hey... Want a sweet?" Draco crawled over to the boy, holding the sticky treat in his plump fingers and holding it out. The boy looked up and glared at him, though the effect was weakened by the tears pouring down his cheeks. Draco thought he looked like a kicked puppy. Draco had always wanted a puppy, but his Mummy had said that they made too much mess so Draco wasn't allowed to have one. "Hey, I said... d'you want a sweet?"_

_The boy mumbled something inaudible. "Wah?" Draco tilted his head sideways. "I dun know what you said..."_

_"No." The boy pouted his lips and sniffed again._

_"Okay." Draco shrugged and went once again to eat it, but placed it back into the bag at the last minute. He put the bag by the boy's feet, and noticed he wasn't wearing any shoes. Mummy told Draco to always wear shoes, even when he was in the house. Draco wondered why the boy wasn't wearing any shoes. "Hey, why aren't ya wearing shoes?" The boy shrugged, looking away. Draco rocked from side to side for a second. "Wanna play with my dolls?" The boy shook his head._

_"Uh... wanna play with my horsies?" The boy shook his head._

_"Um... wanna read a book?" Shake._

_"Wanna go play outside?" Shake._

_"Wanna build a tower?" Shake._

_"Do you wanna build a snowman?" The boy began to shake his head, then looked up at Draco as if he'd suggested they murder the King of England._

_"We're in the middle of the Caribbean. Where would we get snow?" The boy asked incredulously, his voice thick._

_Draco smiled. "It doesn't have to be a snowman. It could be a snowman made out of sand!"_

_"So... a sandman...?" The boy asked._

_Draco nodded. "Yeah! Mummy says I'm not allowed on the beach, but we could always go and ask her and if you're with me I'm sure she'll say yes... hey, why're you crying?"_

_"Um..." He mumbled something, and Draco nudged him again, practically ordering the boy to speak up because Draco only had little ears. "Your Daddy was sayin' mean things ta me."_

_Draco frowned. Daddy had been saying mean things? Daddies didn't say mean things... though sometimes when Daddy thought Draco wasn't listening he did sometimes say naughty words, so maybe what Basil was saying was right. "Why was Daddy being mean ta ya?"_

_"Mi Madre says it's because he's a race mist." The boy mumbled._

_"Wha's tha'?"_

_"'S when you don't like somebody because their skin isn't white... I think."_

_"Oh." Draco frowned, leaning backwards. "I think my skin is too white. I burn too easily. But Mummy says we can't change our skin colour so I shouldn't keep whining about it. It's also why I'm not allowed on the beach, in case I get burnt, and I'm not allowed outside for too often either. But I think it's okay, because I can always play indoors! And it's cooler indoors as well... Hey." Draco nudged the little boy. "I've forgotten your name."_

_The boy frowned at him. "'S Blaise."_

_"Okay." Draco stood up, and reached his hand out to the boy. "Blaise, would you like to be my friend?" From the floor, Blaise looked up at him, eyes wide and still sparkling with tears. His mouth stretched into a shaky smile, and Draco felt his stomach twist with the excitement of having a friend._

_"'S my job, isn't it?"_

* * *

Oh. That was the feeling. He was caring about somebody who wasn't himself again. Ugh. No wonder he felt ill all of a sudden.

"Draco?"

"Hm?" Draco looked over at the kid, who had moved in the couple of seconds Draco had been thinking.

The boy laughed. "Are you coming to play Liar's Dice or not?"

"Uh... yeah! Yeah." Draco hurried to catch up with him as they crossed the deck to where Jack was sitting, a one-eyed, one legged bald man with half of his teeth and an extra finger on his left hand. Draco had asked him a couple of times how he'd come to that appearance, and Jack had answered differently every time.

"Draco's gonna play Liar's Dice with us Jack!" The cabin boy cheered, sitting cross legged on the floor. Draco sat down next to him awkwardly, and Jack looked him up and down with his one green, working eye. The other eye was some kind of marble, or ball, and it spun in his socket like the earth, even when he wasn't moving. It creeped Draco the fuck out, but he knew it was impolite to say anything.

"Um, yeah, but you guys are going to have to teach me how to play. I have, like, no idea." Draco covered his inexperience with an awkward, high pitched laugh.

"Oh, it's easy! I'll show you in no time." The cabin boy giggled. "Here," He handed Draco one of the cups that he'd seen earlier. It was a little greasy, but he tried to ignore it. He peered inside. "Okay, so we each have five, six-sided die, okay?"

"Die?"

"It's the singular of dice." The boy smiled at him. "What we do is we shake the cup, with the dice in them, and then flip it onto the deck like this," as he spoke, the boy followed his own actions. "Then you lift up the lid to see what you have, so for example I have two threes, a two and two ones. Now, every turn you have to say a bid on how many of a certain number are on the table." The cabin boy tilted his head and hummed. "Um... I guess with this hand I'd bid for two twos..."

"How? You only have one two." Draco pointed out.

"Yeah, but I have two ones, see?" The kid pointed at them. "And ones can be any number on a die."

"Oh."

"But I wouldn't have to bid with only what I have, see? Because everybody would have die, and the bid is what's on all of the table, in total. So maybe I should have bidded a little higher..." The boy trailed off, and shook his head. "Anyway, then it would be your turn, because we go around in a circle. You could either bid, or call me a liar. Now, if you bid, you have to bid higher than what the person before you bid. So if I bidded two twos, you could bid... uh..."

"Either bid three or more twos, or two threes or more." Jack piped up. His voice sounded a bit like a dolphin's squeal. "I's gotta be higher than Colins 'ere in number. Two twos adds up to four, so ye can bid anythin above a four in number."

"Yeah! Yeah, what Jack said." The cabin boy said. It seemed as though his name was Colin, not that Draco trusted himself to remember. "Um, or if you think what I bid won't be true- that there will be more, or less, than two twos on the table- then you can say I'm a liar. If you're right, you get all the money, but if you're wrong then I do!"

"What about Jack's money?" Draco asked.

"Either you or me gets it. Once the money's in the middle, it isn't ours anymore! So, you still want to play?" Colin's eyes sparkled mischievously, and Draco found himself nodding. "Yay! Let's get started then!"

For the next hour and a half, Draco, Colin and Jack hardly moved from their seats. Though Draco found it a tad confusing at first, he quickly got into the game, and saw he was getting better and better with each roll of the die. Or at least, he was getting more and more confident with his ability. He tried to make sure to be careful with his money, never betting more than a quarter of his money, but throughout the afternoon his bag of coins grew heavier. Sometimes Draco won, sometimes Jack won. Once, Colin won, though Draco was sure he'd just gotten lucky.

At some point after Draco had won a particularly large stack of coins, Colin looked up at the sky. "It's getting rather late guys, we'll be called in for food any minute. One more game, then we'll pack it in for the day?" Draco was having a lot of fun, and he didn't really want to stop, but on the other hand he also wanted to eat food. He was starving. He and Jack nodded, and Colin's eyes glinted. "Hey... I've just had a fun idea... why don't we put all of our winnings for the day into it. All or nothing, hey guys?"

"You're only saying that because you have nothing to lose from it." Draco said with a laugh.

"Aw c'mon, please? Think how much the total winnings would be! Besides, it's not like we're betting all of the money we own, just what we've used today." Colin pouted, and Draco got the feeling somebody had been teaching him how to do the puppy face. Still, the amount of money was inspiring, and Draco was getting pretty good with the game...

"Sure, what the heck." Jack said, tossing his bag of coins on to the deck in between them with a shake of his head. They made a large thunk as they hit the deck. Draco matched his movements, his coins clinking against each other. Sure, it was all of the money Yaxley had given him (and then some), but what were the chances he'd lose? "D'ye want t'go first, Draco?"

"Ah, okay." Draco said, shaking his cup rigourously, and then looking down at his die. "Three threes..."

After peering at his die for a second, Jack bid. "Four threes."

Colin checked underneath his cup. "Five threes."

Draco frowned as he checked his dice again; he only had two threes, no ones... There was a lot of money on the line; perhaps he should play it safe... "Six threes?"

Jack nodded in consideration. He tapped his wooden leg twice- something Draco understood as being a sort of good luck charm for the man- and spoke again. "Seven threes."

"Eight threes." Colin spoke without looking at any of his die. He smiled confidently, and looked over at Draco.

"Liar." Draco accused; how could Colin be sure of his bid if he didn't even check his own die?!

Colin grinned, uncovering his cup and shoving his die into the center of the table. Draco and Jack did so as well, Jack shaking his head as he did so.

Seven threes. Two ones. That meant nine.

Draco had lost. Draco had lost everything.

Colin just smiled wider as he grabbed the bags of money. "Don't worry, Draco. I still would have won even if you hadn't accused me. Jack wasn't going to say 'liar' at anything you said because he didn't trust my hand, so he'd have bid eleven threes. Of course, I'd already guessed that nine was going to be the limit, I would have called him out on it and won."

"So... You're..." Draco's mouth was hanging open.

"Good at Liar's Dice? You could say that. Nobody normally plays with me because I almost always win, so I'm really glad you agreed to play!" Colin handed Jack two of the bags. "You said you needed to buy a new leg, right Jack? This one is burning out or something? There you go, I don't really need this much money anyway."

"But... but... today, you were..." Draco was still slightly confused.

"Loosing? Yeah, I was just pretending to be bad to try and convince you to play. A friend of mine said people will always be more accepting of things if they think they're better than you!" Colin giggled. "She also said pretending to be bad at a game so that you could win later, well, there's a word for is. Hasty, or something?"

"Hustling, Colin!" One of the sailors called from the rigging.

"Yeah, that's the one! We should play again sometime Draco, I had a lot of fun today." Colin flashed another smile and reached out his hand to help pull Draco up.

"Whatever kid. It was a stupid game anyway." Draco muttered, pulling himself up and stomping down below deck.

* * *

Draco was in a bad mood throughout dinner. He sat in the corner of the room, lips pursed, eyes trained at his plate as though he could cut the plate, the table, the entire ship, in two with one well-placed glare. Nobody approached him. Everybody approached Colin, however, patting him on the back, laughing with him, ruffling his hair... congratulating him on 'taking the spoilt brat down a peg'.

See. This is what happens when you try to make friends.

Draco was still grumpy when Colin approached him after dinner, as Draco was climbing into his hammock to go to bed. He'd started to remove his shirt during night time, so that it would be cleaner for longer, and also because the heat (and stench) was stifling in a room of over a dozen sleeping, muscly men who hadn't bathed in forever (unless you counted waves hitting them in the face, which Draco didn't). Colin, however was still fully clothed, as he was on lookout duty in the crow's nest that night, and it was cold once the sun went down.

"Draco?"

"Go away, kid."

"No, Draco, hear me out a sec." Colin took a deep breath. "I know you feel embarrassed about how I hustled you, and I get it. I wouldn't like it if somebody tricked me either. But that's how I make most of my money, since my wages are always smaller than everybody else's. My family is really poor, and since my Dad had his accident nobody will hire him and there's only so much work my Mum can take on with my little brother at home. I've been hopping from ship to ship getting work, but because of labour laws they can't take me on for too long. They find out my age soon enough, even if I lie. So by taking money off people in games like Liar's Dice, I can send my family the kind of money I should be earning."

"I don't give a fuck about your sob story." Draco muttered.

"That's okay, I can tell you're not the kind of person who goes about giving free hugs. I'm just asking you not to hate me for cheating you out of your money, it's not like you really need it, you being a Malfoy and all, and... Oh!" Colin jumped, his voice becoming higher pitched. "N-Not that I resent you for being rich, I'm fine with it and everything, it's just that-"

"Where did you even learn to play like that anyway?" Draco asked suddenly. "You were so sure of what the dice were going to be, even though you could only see your hand. And you only looked once!"

"Oh, well one of my friends taught me. She's really smart, and she offered to teach me basic probability skills one time, to use in games like Liar's Dice and Poker and Go Fish. She says most games are a mix of logic and luck, so as long as you know probability you have a high chance of always winning!" Colin's voice shone with admiration. "She and all her friends are really cool. I want to be just like them and work alongside them, but she always says I'm too young to be a pirate."

If Draco had been drinking something at that moment, he would have spat it all over Dolohov's snoring body. As it was, he began to cough as though one of the biscuits they'd had during dinner had decided to walk back up his throat and lodge itself in the side. "P...P... Pirate?"

"Huh?" Colin looked momentarily confused. "Oh, yeah, she's a pirate. They all are, I guess. We've always been really lax about it where I'm from, though, depending on their allegiance. The people who follow Dumbledore are a cool bunch... That's Hermione and her lot, uh, she's the one who taught me about Liar's Dice, but there are another bunch of pirates as well, and they aren't so friendly. They're led by this guy who calls himself..."

"Colin!" A gruff voice called from outside of the room, and Colin gave a start.

"Oh, oh yeah, I'm on duty tonight... Um, I'll see you later, Draco! We're friends now, right?" Colin asked.

"Yeah... friends." Draco said, still shocked that he was stood so near to a person who's ambition was to become a pirate. "Um, wait, what's your name again?"

The cabin boy laughed. "It's Colin, Draco. Colin Creevey!" And with that he darted through the entrance, and Draco flopped into his bed, and promptly fell asleep, exhausted.

* * *

Colin shivered in the cold, hugging himself. For some reason, it was really cold out that night. He would do anything to be back down below deck, huddled in his hammock, or to be around a nice warm fire.

High up in the crow's nest, a person could see for miles and miles. During the day it was breath-taking, and usually the same could be said for night-time. That night, however, the moon was distant and dim, only appearing through a break in the clouds once every few minutes. When Colin usually had to be look-out, he enjoyed looking at the sky's reflection in the waves, but now they were ink black, and kind of scary. Colin found himself thinking about how deep the ocean must be, how long it would take to reach the bottom, and what kind of mysteries and creatures a person could find down there...

It was almost midnight, perhaps just gone, and Colin was one of the only people still awake on the boat. The other was a guy named Bill, who'd been assigned to steer the ship. At one o'clock they'd be able to leave- Colin would go first, and wake up their replacements who'd switch shifts with them, since Bill obviously couldn't leave his post. That was just a little longer than half an hour. In just that short amount of time, Colin would be able to sleep at last.

He yawned and stretched his arms. His entire body was beginning to get stiff, from cold, or from standing in one place too long, he wasn't sure which. He decided to turn around on the spot, suddenly aware of the fact he'd only been looking in one direction.

It would be just his luck if something crept up on the ship right now.

Colin turned slowly and looked, his muscles tensing with anticipation.

"Oh duck everything!" There was a ship pulling up right next to the Endeavour. There was a pirate ship pulling up right next to the Endeavour. There were actual people quietly boarding the Endeavour and roping the two ships together. There was an actual pirate knocking Bill out with the handle of their sword, before taking the helm. Another string of child-safe curses left Colin's mouth. Was is Dumbledore or Voldemort? Did it matter at this point? He'd get in trouble either way. He peered at the unknown ship's flag. It didn't look like one of Voldemort's... he looked down, and tried to see if he could recognise any of the pirates boarding the ship and gathering around somebody, who seemed to be in charge, sine there was a large hat (that normally meant power of some sort) wedged on top of their frizzy, out-of-control hair-  _oh thank God, that's Hermione._

Colin's feet finally found themselves and he jumped over the edge of the crows nest, clambering down the rigging like a monkey. He could feel probably a million eyes looking at him, but he ignored them until he got down onto the deck.

"Colin?"

"Hi Hermione... how've you been?"

* * *

"Draco?" Draco groaned as he felt tiny hands shake his shoulders.

"Uuhhhhhh."

"Draco, you need to get up."

"Nuuuuh."

"Draco, it's really important that you..."

"We dun have time fer this." Draco yelped as he was pulled from his hammock, and his beauty sleep, into the air by a pair of strong arms.

"What? What's going on? Put me down!" The sailor that had woken Draco on his first day on the ship dropped Draco onto the floor, shaking his head.

"C'lin, get outta here soon as ye can." The sailor said, before darting out faster than Draco had ever seen the man move.

"Colin, what's going on?" Draco looked at Colin as he stood. Colin's face was a mixture of embarrassment, fear and... was that a bit of excitement?

"Um... I kind of let some pirates I knew board the ship? I mean, it's not like I could fight back or anything, and they aren't too bad of a people so I figured I should just go along with it, and now I realise that was kind of a bad thing to do because they've set fire to the ship." Colin said in a rush, each word becoming more quiet and more fast.

Draco's voice, in contrast, was very loud, and very angry. "Set fire to the ship?! I thought you said your 'friends' didn't do this kind of thing?!"

"They're still pirates Draco! And they want to disrupt a delivery going to one of Voldemort's henchmen, something your father is co-operating in!"

"Who the fuck is Voldemort?" Draco yelled, pulling at his hair. "You know what? You know what, it doesn't matter. You said the ship is on fire! We have to get out of here!"

Colin nodded, and grabbed Draco's hand, stumbling forward. It would spell trouble if the mast collapsed with the two of them trapped underneath.

Above deck, the world had turned into Hell. The air was grey and fuzzy with smoke, and hotter than any day Draco or Colin had ever experienced. The pirates had set fire to the sails of the ship, and if they had been anywhere else other than underneath them, the two boys might have stopped to admire the beauty of a ship being carried by sails of glowing orange. However, they were too scared of the prospect of the fire spreading. Which it was. It had already begun to descend it's way down the mast, and burning embers that jumped off the flames had sparked a small fire at the helm, which was spreading.

As Draco and Colin stumbled across the deck, Draco wondered why the boat was rocking so quickly. He looked up. Of course, everybody was leaving the ship, there was nobody steering the ship, that meant...

The ship gave an unexpected lurch and Colin and Draco fell backwards, narrowly avoiding a barrel of who-knew-what, which fell to it's side and began to roll across the ship.

"That was close!" Colin panted, coughing slightly. Draco wiped a bead of sweat from his brow as Colin scrambled up and reached to pull Draco up (Draco hadn't been able to regain his balance on a normal, calm day at sea, neither of them expected him to get up on his own quickly). Draco grabbed his hand, and- THUMP!

"Fuck!" Draco fell to the floor again, cursing loudly. Another lurch had caused a crate to flip, and he was trapped under a ton of... heavy stuff, he didn't know what; all he registered was that it was heavy, it hurt like a bitch, and no amount of flailing limbs would get the crate off him.

"Oh, oh no, um, don't worry, we can, we'll..." Colin mumbled continuously as he tried to pull the crate off. His fingers kept slipping from sweat as he closed his eyes in frustration and concentration and pulled, yanked, heaved at the corners. His fingers slid off the crate and he fell to the floor. "Um, we can do... How about we try..." There were tears in the corner of his eyes as he stood back up and pulled at the crate again, helplessly. What if they couldn't get Draco out? What if he burnt to death, alive? It would be Colin's fault, he'd let Hermione and her pirates on board, he'd let them set fire to the ship... "There's always... Why don't we... I..."

"Colin! Call for help, you obviously can't do it on your own!" Draco snarled, angry at the entire situation.

"I... Of course... I should... HELP!" Colin yelled, raising his voice as loudly as he could. "HELP! PLEASE! SOMEBODY..." He broke off in a fit of coughing from the smoke. "We... need... help!" Tears started to fall down his face. "I... I'm sorry Draco... this is..." cough "All my..." cough "Fault!"

"Damn right it's all your fault." Draco snapped, trying to turn himself to push the crate off himself. It was no use. Even if he could, he wouldn't have been able to actually move it. He wasn't strong enough. "The minute you saw their fucking ship you should have stood up to them, or gotten somebody else who could, instead of playing buddy-buddy with them." He squinted into the growing smoke. "Wait, I think... somebody's coming!"

It was true. There was a darkness to one area of the smoke that surrounded them, shaped vaguely like a person. It was Bruce, in all his lumbering, half-dressed glory, running as quickly as he could towards the pair.

Colin's face broke into a smile. "Bruce! Oh my gosh, thank God, it's, Bruce it's Draco! We, we need to, he's... wait what are you doing?" Bruce had grabbed Colin and swung him over his shoulder, like he was carrying a carpet or a barrel. "Bruce, no, we have to, we've got to help Draco..."

But Bruce was already heading back to where ever he had come from, most likely one of the small row-boats that had been piled at the edge of the ship, as Colin kicked and punched and screamed his objections. "C'lin! C'llin, listen t'me. We h've to get off 'f the ship. Now. We c'n't stop t' h'lp him. It'll take too long..."

"No it won't! We have to help him-"

"No! Yer lucky I c'ld come back t' help you. I won' risk me life fer that snotty rich boy."

Draco's eyes widened as their retreating bodies were obscured by the smoke. Did the crew really think so little of him that they wouldn't try to save him at all? His eyes began to water- from the smoke, of course, not from crying. He'd known that he hadn't been the most sociable, but surely they had some kind of annoyed affection for him? Had they hated him the entire time?

No... No, they couldn't just leave him like this! Yaxley wouldn't let them leave him like this! Yaxley had liked Draco, Draco was sure he'd liked him, just this afternoon the Captain had offered Draco a cure to his sunburn. Besides, they'd get into trouble if Draco got hurt, or died! He was the son of their boss, surely they'd realise they'd have to protect him! He was a Malfoy, he was Lucius Malfoy's son, he was, he was...

He was going to die.

He was going to die, right there in that fire, not even twenty years old, and there was nothing he could do about it. If Blaise had been there it wouldn't have happened. He'd have pulled the crate off of Draco without a problem, and probably carried him to safety as well. But Blaise wasn't there. Draco cursed Blaise for not going with him. He cursed his father, for sending him off on this Hellbound ship. Oh, how he would regret it when he realised that he'd lost his beloved son, his only heir! Then he'd be sorry for thinking that Draco needed to leave. And all of the crew, they'd regret it when they were out of a job and starving on the streets. His father might even pull enough strings to send them to jail, or have them executed.

He also cursed the kid who had gotten him into the situation. Colin Creevey, who had been too weak to move the crate, too slow to move Draco out of the way, too kind to those fucking pirates, too good and clever at that damn game that had made the crew laugh at Draco, too chirpy about everything, too happy to help, too... everything. The worst part was, he couldn't hate the brat for any of it, because he'd been genuinely distressed at Draco's situation, even going as far to try and evade his own help so that Draco could receive it.

Somewhere, he could hear somebody calling the brats name. Maybe he'd been able to get out of Bruce's grasp, and was coming back to Draco. Of course the crew would return to the blazing ship to help Colin. Everybody loved Colin. He was like the adorably naïve puppy every sailor on the Endeavor had always wanted, but Yaxley had always said no to, or something. Except he wasn't naïve because he'd beaten Draco at Liar's Dice and cheated him out of his money.

The voice was getting closer, but it was also getting fainter. Maybe Draco was dying, and that's why everything was going quiet and dark. Maybe this was the end. It was less painful than Draco had always been told, probably because he was going to Heaven. His Mother had always told him he'd be going to Heaven because he was a 'good boy' (despite Draco's frequent complaints of "I'm not a boy, Mother, I'm a man now"), but if he was such a 'good boy' why had they sent him away? Either way, Draco had to laugh. The crew would arrive beside him, but Colin wouldn't be here, it would just be Draco. Dying. And they would watch the light go out of his eyes and then, then they'd realise how wrong they'd been to leave him there. Or maybe Colin would get there first. It would serve the kid right for letting the pirates set the ship on fire. Draco would die to see the kid's face break into tears right now, high as his anger at everything was. He would die anyway. He coughed, once, twice, his body slumped, his eyesight flickered, and a pair of well-kept, polished black boots skidded inches from his face before his eyes shut.

"Colin? Colin, is that you?"

* * *

When Draco woke from his unconsciousness, the Endeavor was a beacon of dazzling light in the distance, the smoke that rose from it mixing with the night clouds. His back hurt, his lungs stung, his body burnt, and he was tied up against something very hard and possibly round (the mast, he thought in the back of his head), which wasn't helping the burning that spread across his back at all..

He opened his mouth to complain, and state about how his father would be furious at how his employees were treating his son and heir, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a groan of pain, and some other unidentifiable sounds.

He tried to look around, but the world seemed to be spinning, and whenever he moved his head knives stabbed his brain. He was vaguely aware of the sound of people speaking, but he couldn't work out what it was they were meant to be saying.

He closed his eyes for a second, but opened them again when cold steel pressed against his neck. He looked up, ignoring the stabs of pain in his mind, to see who dared to point his sword at him (and work out how he could get them to stop), but he wasn't sure what to do when his eyes met hers. Brown hair like an explosion, brown skin only a shade lighter then Blaise's, beaver teeth, and golden-brown eyes that glinted with confusion and worry and curiosity.

Then she spoke, her voice shrill and grating on Draco's eardrums. "If you aren't Colin, who are you?"


	5. In which Draco meets Hermione

Upon closer inspection of whoever she had saved, Hermione decided that they were definitely not Colin.

Their skin was too red (Colin knew how to avoid sunburn, everybody had made sure of that), his hair was so blond almost white, he was too tall (unless Colin had had a sudden growth spurt, which Hermione doubted) and overall he just didn't fit the body shape Colin had. In fact, the person was probably around Hermione's age, nowhere near Colin's. So who was he? When Hermione had heard Colin, she was sure it had been Colin, calling for help she'd risked her life to go and rescue him. But in the thick smoke, she couldn't see; she must have picked up the wrong person. What if Colin was still on board the ship? He'd probably have been burnt alive by now!

Hermione ordered a couple of the crew to tie the person up against the mast. Hermione didn't know who they were, or what they knew about Voldemort. They could be working alongside him, they could be anything. If they were restrained, she and her crew could question them.

She turned to her First Mate, Ginny, who was fixing her with a stare. "They aren't Colin, Hermione."

"I realised that, Ginny."

"So who are they?"

"I don't know. On the ship, I couldn't see, they looked enough like Colin then. But... now they don't." Hermione rubbed the back of her neck.

"We have no idea who they are, they could be dangerous." Ginny warned.

"That's why we're tying them up, Gin." Hermione sighed. "I'm sure it was Colin's voice... what if he's still on board?"

"We can't go back, Hermione. The fire's too big now." Hermione looked over at the ship, which lit the night sky like a lantern. Ginny shifted her weight from one foot to the other and nudged her friend. "Hey, at least whatever-it-was that Voldemort wanted is destroyed now, right?"

"Ehh..." Hermione's voice rose a few octaves, and Ginny's eyebrows raised.

"Right, Hermione? ...Hermione I swear to God..." Ginny growled, as Hermione pulled a scroll of paper from one of her pockets. "Oh my God, Hermione, you didn't!"

"I did." Hermione blushed slightly. "I was curious, Ginny! It's a map, I think. What would Voldemort want with a map?"

"I don't know, but we didn't board and set fire to a ship to not destroy something Voldemort's after! Now he can just have one of his minions board our ship and take it from us." Ginny ranted, throwing her hands into the air. "I thought you were smart, Hermione!"

"I am smart." Hermione said defensively. "But think, if Voldemort wants this, then it has to be important, right? We could use this."

"How?"

"I don't know, we'll have to actually look at it first." Hermione shrugged.

"Well, I say we toss it overboard and hope the fish eat it." Ginny said, making a grab for the paper.

Hermione stood on her tip-toes to keep it out of Ginny's reach. "And I say we look at it before getting rid of it, Ginny. Who's the Captain here?" Ginny pouted, and Hermione frowned. "Come on, Gin. Just one little look. It could turn into another adventure? I know you like adventures."

"… I do like adventures." Ginny conceded, lowering her hand. "Just one look, and if it's not interesting..."

"I'll rip it into pieces, I promise." Hermione said, with both of them knowing she would do no such thing. But the idea was there. Ginny rolled her eyes, and Hermione put the paper back into her pocket. She'd look at it more closely later.

At that moment, a noise came from the mast. The person Hermione had found had woken up, and was trying to speak, but he sounded more like a dolphin than a person. Hermione and Ginny shared a look, and Hermione drew her cutlass as she approached the person, raising it to their throat. They opened their eyes, panicked, and Hermione noticed they were grey. That settled it, the person definitely wasn't Colin; Colin's eyes were brown.

"If you aren't Colin, who are you?" Hermione asked, her heart beating quickly.

All that came out of their mouth was a gurgle of wordless nonsense. Hermione bit back a groan of frustration... perhaps they were deaf? If Hermione was going to sign to them, she'd have to lower her sword. And she'd have to cut the ropes so that they could answer... and who said they even knew sign language anyway?

But then the person spoke. "I-I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, heir to the Malfoy estate, please don't kill me!"

Hermione half thought about lowering her sword. The guy was obviously scared shitless...

"Malfoy? As in Luicus Malfoy, right?" Ginny piped up, and the boy - Draco - looked over to her, wincing for some reason.

"Y-yeah, and he'll be super angry if anything happens to me, so..." He trailed off, and Hermione lowered her cutlass. Ginny walked over to them and leaned over to whisper in Hermione's ear.

"'Mione, maybe Malfoy sent his son to supervise the transport of that map. He might know something."

"You're right Ginny." Hermione replied in a hushed voice, before raising it to talk to Draco again. "What were you doing on that ship, Malfoy?"

"Uh... Business studies." Draco said. "Learning about the sea... and stuff. For when I'm older, taking over the business and everything."

"He's lying." Ginny whispered. "Oi! Why would you need to go on a boat if all you'll be doing is sitting in an office signing papers?"

Draco made a face. "That's what I said! All I'll have to do when I'm in charge is supervise, it's all maths, that's exactly what I said to Blaise. There was no reason for me to go on that ship, I told my father so, but no, that wasn't good enough for him, he wanted me to get experience. Look how that turned out! I lost all my money gambling, almost died in a fire, and now I've gotten kidnapped by pirates!"

Hermione and Ginny barely stopped themselves from bursting out laughing. "Yeah," Hermione whispered to Ginny. "Like he knows anything."

"Snape's more likely to be involved with Voldemort than this idiot." Ginny agreed. She paused. "So what do we do with him, then?"

Hermione frowned. "I... Well, let's untie him, for a start, it can't be comfortable." She swung her blade, Draco flinching as she neatly cut through the ropes. Without them holding him up, Draco collapsed onto the floor, hissing in pain as the wood contacted his blistered skin. "And sort out his burns."

"Those aren't from the fire, though, that's sunburn." Ginny pointed out.

"Eh, I'm sure we can fix it either way." Hermione assured her. "Steve!" At the call of his name, a sailor walked over from whatever he had been doing. He was short and kind of round, a bit like a pig- less pink than a pig, but just as stout, dirty and hairy. He wore a rather stereotypical black pirate hat over his grey, thinning hair (it was hiding the bald patch that he refused to admit was there); his hands were covered in wrinkles, and his face only sagged when he stopped smiling.

"Aye, Cap'n?" The old man's voice was croaky but lilting, it reminded Draco briefly of waves crashing against the shore.

"Steve, could you take Mr. Malfoy down below and fix his skin problem? Then bring him back up to my quarters, we're going to have to have a little talk." Hermione ordered, before spinning on her heels and leaving.

"Sure thing." Steve called to her, reaching under Draco's armpits to haul him up.

"I can get up myself, you know." Draco complained.

"Sure thing." The old man laughed, steering Draco below deck to an area curtained off by a dirty what-once-was-white cloth. "Strip then, let's have a look-see."

Even though Draco had spent most of his childhood being dressed and undressed by his family's servants, he still found it uncomfortable getting naked in front of Steve, mostly because of the fact he was a man, and an old one at that. As he pulled his legs out of his trousers one at a time, Steve clambered up onto a stool, then a counter, and used some empty shelves as a foot-holder as he climbed a cabinet. At the top of the cabinet, arranged neatly in a line, were a bunch of boxes and jars. One of Steve's wrinkly hands grabbed a box to the far right, then he descended back to the floor.

As Steve set about doing whatever it was he was doing (Draco didn't care), Draco sat down on a small table, and took a chance to look around the room they were in. Not that there was much to look at. There were a bunch of jars and pots, and boxes, and a couple of books, but nothing special. "Um, what is all this?"

"The jars? Aye, this is our little emergency room. The Cap'n let's me potter around in here 'cause once I told 'er 'ow I'd like to be a Doct'r one day. She got most o' this stuff from a tall fella she's friends with, 'e's got quite a bit of a garden, so I'm told." Steve looked over his shoulder and grinned at Draco. "This plant 'ere should calm yer skin down. 'M mixin' it with a bit o' sea water, probl'y gonna hurt a bit... But it'll do the trick, aye, sure thing." He grabbed a jar of sea water and poured a couple of drops into the mortar he was crushing the plant into, continuing to pound the pestle into the stone base. "Then it'll be simple t' manage yer skin. Just cover i' up and try to exp'se yerself grad-u-lly." The old man spun on his toes, walking over to Draco with the paste he had created. "They didn' try much to 'elp you on yer ship, did they, boy?"

"Uh... Well, they were going to, but..." Draco faltered as he looked at the thick, green paste. "Are you really going to put that on me?"

"Sure thing." Steve nodded, laughing shortly. "It's gonna sting a bi', mind." And with that, he thrust his chubby, dirty fingers into the green paste, and began to spread it across Draco's burnt shoulder.

Draco let out a blood-curdling scream; the paste burned worse than anything he had ever experienced before. It was most likely the salt from the seawater that stung against his raw skin like a thousand ants biting him all over. "Ach, don' be such a baby." Steve chuckled. "Gotta lay it on thick, 'ere, fix y' up."

By the time Steve had covered all of the areas and rubbed the green, bumpy paste in (much to Draco's complaint) Draco's body had all but gone numb from the pain. Steve grabbed some clothes from another section behind the curtain, and placed them beside Draco. "Dun put them on yet, y' need to le' it dry first. Oth'wise yet clothes'll be all sticky." Draco agreed, thinking more about how it would hurt if he put the clothes on. A small part of him thought about just staying naked, but he couldn't bring himself to walk outside naked. Aside from how people might laugh at him, it would also be undignified... and he might get sunburn in... less than pleasant places... "Le's talk, t'pass the time."

"Whatever." Draco mumbled, and the old man laughed, pulling the stool from the cabinet to sit across from Draco.

"Y' not very soci-a-ble, are you? Wha's yer name? 'Ermi-ne called yeh 'Mister Malfoy'."

"Well, that is my name." Draco replied shortly. He was mostly trying to keep his answers short because he could sense a whine in his voice.

"Odd firs' name, 'Mister'." The old man laughed. "Fancy callin' your son 'Mister'. Y' wouldn't catch me callin' my chil'ren 'Mister', though suppose i's what they do in those posh places o' yours."

"My name isn't Mister, it's Draco." Draco snapped. The man laughed louder.

"Oh, as if tha's any better."

"It's Latin."

"'N' my names from the Bible. I think. Steve, by the way. Ev'ryone calls me Steve." The man laughed. "Latin... What's it mean?"

"Dragon."

"Aye, imagine bein' named aft'r a dragon. D'ye reckon they're real then? Those fire-breathers?" Steve chuckled. Draco briefly questioned why people were always laughing whenever he spoke to them. Was he really that funny? Or was there something in the water these sea-people drank?

"Of course not." He replied, scoffing.

"O' course not." Steve repeated. "Y'know, there are many folk who reckon they're real. Them an' plenty o' other myth-cal creatures. Won't see many out 'ere... Ha! See, sea.. Reckon there are plenty water creatures, though. Hidin' in the depths..."

"That sounds stupid."

"Nothin's stupid, Draco Dragon. 'Til som'thin is proven to be false, then we 'ave to think that i's true." Steve blinked slowly. "We can't dive deep 'nough to discover 'em, prob'ly don' wanna be found."

"Or maybe myths are myths." Draco said.

"Or maybe myths 'r' myths. We don' know. But it's best to keep an open mind." He stretched, reaching his short arms to the sky. "Well, tha' should do it. You put yer clothes on now, then go up to see the Cap'n, she'll be in 'er Quarters on the other end o' the ship, can't miss the door. I best be off back to work." He stood, wiggling his toes, and strode away. He popped his head around the curtain second after he had left, grinning. "Oh, and by the way, welcome to Spew, Draco Dragon."

As Draco hissed and pulled the scratchy material over his red skin, he wondered what the fuck Steve was on about. What the Hell was Spew?

* * *

A couple of seconds later Draco was stood outside, knocking on the door Steve said the Captain would be behind. He found it odd to think that, just yesterday, he had been in the same situation, yet on a different ship. How had everything changed so quickly. The Captain's voice, less shrill now she had calmed down, called for him to enter, and he opened the door.

Inside, the Captain was alone, without their hot-headed ginger friend. The Captain was hunched over their desk, several maps spread out in front of them. She looked up when Draco entered, and flashed him a quick smile. "Hello, Mr. Malfoy. I guess Steve fixed you up, then?"

"It hurt like hell." Draco complained, and the girl (or should he say woman?) rolled her eyes.

"Don't be a baby. It doesn't hurt that badly." She took one last look at her map, and then stood up straight, walking over to Draco and shaking his hand. "Well, Mr. Malfoy, my name is Hermione Granger, and this is my ship."

"Uh, Steve called it... Spew?" Draco said, as he and Hermione sat down next to the desk.

Hermione groaned. "I've told them to stop calling it that. The ships full name is 'The Ship Purposed for the Exploration of Water', but of course that's too long to keep saying. I've said to shorten it to 'S.P.E.W.', but now everybody just says 'Spew' instead." She sighed. "It can't be helped, I guess. So, you're certain that you were just on that ship to learn the ropes? No... hidden agenda, or anything?"

"No!" Draco said, exasperated. "Why do you keep asking me that? I was just on the ship to see what it's like, my father made me do it, I have no idea what you mean by 'hidden agenda'!"

Hermione nodded. "I believe you, but... You have to understand, that ship had no ordinary purpose. It was carrying something that we believe is very important, something that Voldemort wanted very badly. This map," Hermione pointed to an old, weathered piece of paper that was in the middle of the table, "could lead to something... well, I don't know. Amazing."

"So you raided the ship to... retrieve it?" Draco asked, looking at it. It was written in a language he didn't understand, and the ink was blotchy.

"Well," Hermione blushed slightly. "The original intention was to destroy it, but... it's so interesting, I couldn't get rid of it. Who knows what it might lead to? And if Voldemort wanted it, it could eventually give us an advantage, over him!"

"Wait, wait, I've heard that name before." Draco frowned. "Who's Voldemort?"

Hermione looked at him in surprise. "Who's... You don't know? Have you been living under a rock? Well, I suppose since your father was in league with him you'd never need to know, but... You truly don't know who Voldemort is?"

"No! And what do you mean, my father's in league with him?"

"I... It's a very long story, Mr. Malfoy." Hermione shook her head.

"We have time."

"…Okay. I guess it started around twenty-five, thirty years ago..."

Upon closer inspection of whoever she had saved, Hermione decided that they were definitely not Colin.

Their skin was too red (Colin knew how to avoid sunburn, everybody had made sure of that), his hair was so blond almost white, he was too tall (unless Colin had had a sudden growth spurt, which Hermione doubted) and overall he just didn't fit the body shape Colin had. In fact, the person was probably around Hermione's age, nowhere near Colin's. So who was he? When Hermione had heard Colin, she was sure it had been Colin, calling for help she'd risked her life to go and rescue him. But in the thick smoke, she couldn't see; she must have picked up the wrong person. What if Colin was still on board the ship? He'd probably have been burnt alive by now!

Hermione ordered a couple of the crew to tie the person up against the mast. Hermione didn't know who they were, or what they knew about Voldemort. They could be working alongside him, they could be anything. If they were restrained, she and her crew could question them.

She turned to her First Mate, Ginny, who was fixing her with a stare. "They aren't Colin, Hermione."

"I realised that, Ginny."

"So who are they?"

"I don't know. On the ship, I couldn't see, they looked enough like Colin then. But... now they don't." Hermione rubbed the back of her neck.

"We have no idea who they are, they could be dangerous." Ginny warned.

"That's why we're tying them up, Gin." Hermione sighed. "I'm sure it was Colin's voice... what if he's still on board?"

"We can't go back, Hermione. The fire's too big now." Hermione looked over at the ship, which lit the night sky like a lantern. Ginny shifted her weight from one foot to the other and nudged her friend. "Hey, at least whatever-it-was that Voldemort wanted is destroyed now, right?"

"Ehh..." Hermione's voice rose a few octaves, and Ginny's eyebrows raised.

"Right, Hermione? ...Hermione I swear to God..." Ginny growled, as Hermione pulled a scroll of paper from one of her pockets. "Oh my God, Hermione, you didn't!"

"I did." Hermione blushed slightly. "I was curious, Ginny! It's a map, I think. What would Voldemort want with a map?"

"I don't know, but we didn't board and set fire to a ship to not destroy something Voldemort's after! Now he can just have one of his minions board our ship and take it from us." Ginny ranted, throwing her hands into the air. "I thought you were smart, Hermione!"

"I am smart." Hermione said defensively. "But think, if Voldemort wants this, then it has to be important, right? We could use this."

"How?"

"I don't know, we'll have to actually look at it first." Hermione shrugged.

"Well, I say we toss it overboard and hope the fish eat it." Ginny said, making a grab for the paper.

Hermione stood on her tip-toes to keep it out of Ginny's reach. "And I say we look at it before getting rid of it, Ginny. Who's the Captain here?" Ginny pouted, and Hermione frowned. "Come on, Gin. Just one little look. It could turn into another adventure? I know you like adventures."

"… I do like adventures." Ginny conceded, lowering her hand. "Just one look, and if it's not interesting..."

"I'll rip it into pieces, I promise." Hermione said, with both of them knowing she would do no such thing. But the idea was there. Ginny rolled her eyes, and Hermione put the paper back into her pocket. She'd look at it more closely later.

At that moment, a noise came from the mast. The person Hermione had found had woken up, and was trying to speak, but he sounded more like a dolphin than a person. Hermione and Ginny shared a look, and Hermione drew her cutlass as she approached the person, raising it to their throat. They opened their eyes, panicked, and Hermione noticed they were grey. That settled it, the person definitely wasn't Colin; Colin's eyes were brown.

"If you aren't Colin, who are you?" Hermione asked, her heart beating quickly.

All that came out of their mouth was a gurgle of wordless nonsense. Hermione bit back a groan of frustration... perhaps they were deaf? If Hermione was going to sign to them, she'd have to lower her sword. And she'd have to cut the ropes so that they could answer... and who said they even knew sign language anyway?

But then the person spoke. "I-I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, heir to the Malfoy estate, please don't kill me!"

Hermione half thought about lowering her sword. The guy was obviously scared shitless...

"Malfoy? As in Luicus Malfoy, right?" Ginny piped up, and the boy - Draco - looked over to her, wincing for some reason.

"Y-yeah, and he'll be super angry if anything happens to me, so..." He trailed off, and Hermione lowered her cutlass. Ginny walked over to them and leaned over to whisper in Hermione's ear.

"'Mione, maybe Malfoy sent his son to supervise the transport of that map. He might know something."

"You're right Ginny." Hermione replied in a hushed voice, before raising it to talk to Draco again. "What were you doing on that ship, Malfoy?"

"Uh... Business studies." Draco said. "Learning about the sea... and stuff. For when I'm older, taking over the business and everything."

"He's lying." Ginny whispered. "Oi! Why would you need to go on a boat if all you'll be doing is sitting in an office signing papers?"

Draco made a face. "That's what I said! All I'll have to do when I'm in charge is supervise, it's all maths, that's exactly what I said to Blaise. There was no reason for me to go on that ship, I told my father so, but no, that wasn't good enough for him, he wanted me to get experience. Look how that turned out! I lost all my money gambling, almost died in a fire, and now I've gotten kidnapped by pirates!"

Hermione and Ginny barely stopped themselves from bursting out laughing. "Yeah," Hermione whispered to Ginny. "Like he knows anything."

"Snape's more likely to be involved with Voldemort than this idiot." Ginny agreed. She paused. "So what do we do with him, then?"

Hermione frowned. "I... Well, let's untie him, for a start, it can't be comfortable." She swung her blade, Draco flinching as she neatly cut through the ropes. Without them holding him up, Draco collapsed onto the floor, hissing in pain as the wood contacted his blistered skin. "And sort out his burns."

"Those aren't from the fire, though, that's sunburn." Ginny pointed out.

"Eh, I'm sure we can fix it either way." Hermione assured her. "Steve!" At the call of his name, a sailor walked over from whatever he had been doing. He was short and kind of round, a bit like a pig- less pink than a pig, but just as stout, dirty and hairy. He wore a rather stereotypical black pirate hat over his grey, thinning hair (it was hiding the bald patch that he refused to admit was there); his hands were covered in wrinkles, and his face only sagged when he stopped smiling.

"Aye, Cap'n?" The old man's voice was croaky but lilting, it reminded Draco briefly of waves crashing against the shore.

"Steve, could you take Mr. Malfoy down below and fix his skin problem? Then bring him back up to my quarters, we're going to have to have a little talk." Hermione ordered, before spinning on her heels and leaving.

"Sure thing." Steve called to her, reaching under Draco's armpits to haul him up.

"I can get up myself, you know." Draco complained.

"Sure thing." The old man laughed, steering Draco below deck to an area curtained off by a dirty what-once-was-white cloth. "Strip then, let's have a look-see."

Even though Draco had spent most of his childhood being dressed and undressed by his family's servants, he still found it uncomfortable getting naked in front of Steve, mostly because of the fact he was a man, and an old one at that. As he pulled his legs out of his trousers one at a time, Steve clambered up onto a stool, then a counter, and used some empty shelves as a foot-holder as he climbed a cabinet. At the top of the cabinet, arranged neatly in a line, were a bunch of boxes and jars. One of Steve's wrinkly hands grabbed a box to the far right, then he descended back to the floor.

As Steve set about doing whatever it was he was doing (Draco didn't care), Draco sat down on a small table, and took a chance to look around the room they were in. Not that there was much to look at. There were a bunch of jars and pots, and boxes, and a couple of books, but nothing special. "Um, what is all this?"

"The jars? Aye, this is our little emergency room. The Cap'n let's me potter around in here 'cause once I told 'er 'ow I'd like to be a Doct'r one day. She got most o' this stuff from a tall fella she's friends with, 'e's got quite a bit of a garden, so I'm told." Steve looked over his shoulder and grinned at Draco. "This plant 'ere should calm yer skin down. 'M mixin' it with a bit o' sea water, probl'y gonna hurt a bit... But it'll do the trick, aye, sure thing." He grabbed a jar of sea water and poured a couple of drops into the mortar he was crushing the plant into, continuing to pound the pestle into the stone base. "Then it'll be simple t' manage yer skin. Just cover i' up and try to exp'se yerself grad-u-lly." The old man spun on his toes, walking over to Draco with the paste he had created. "They didn' try much to 'elp you on yer ship, did they, boy?"

"Uh... Well, they were going to, but..." Draco faltered as he looked at the thick, green paste. "Are you really going to put that on me?"

"Sure thing." Steve nodded, laughing shortly. "It's gonna sting a bi', mind." And with that, he thrust his chubby, dirty fingers into the green paste, and began to spread it across Draco's burnt shoulder.

Draco let out a blood-curdling scream; the paste burned worse than anything he had ever experienced before. It was most likely the salt from the seawater that stung against his raw skin like a thousand ants biting him all over. "Ach, don' be such a baby." Steve chuckled. "Gotta lay it on thick, 'ere, fix y' up."

By the time Steve had covered all of the areas and rubbed the green, bumpy paste in (much to Draco's complaint) Draco's body had all but gone numb from the pain. Steve grabbed some clothes from another section behind the curtain, and placed them beside Draco. "Dun put them on yet, y' need to le' it dry first. Oth'wise yet clothes'll be all sticky." Draco agreed, thinking more about how it would hurt if he put the clothes on. A small part of him thought about just staying naked, but he couldn't bring himself to walk outside naked. Aside from how people might laugh at him, it would also be undignified... and he might get sunburn in... less than pleasant places... "Le's talk, t'pass the time."

"Whatever." Draco mumbled, and the old man laughed, pulling the stool from the cabinet to sit across from Draco.

"Y' not very soci-a-ble, are you? Wha's yer name? 'Ermi-ne called yeh 'Mister Malfoy'."

"Well, that is my name." Draco replied shortly. He was mostly trying to keep his answers short because he could sense a whine in his voice.

"Odd firs' name, 'Mister'." The old man laughed. "Fancy callin' your son 'Mister'. Y' wouldn't catch me callin' my chil'ren 'Mister', though suppose i's what they do in those posh places o' yours."

"My name isn't Mister, it's Draco." Draco snapped. The man laughed louder.

"Oh, as if tha's any better."

"It's Latin."

"'N' my names from the Bible. I think. Steve, by the way. Ev'ryone calls me Steve." The man laughed. "Latin... What's it mean?"

"Dragon."

"Aye, imagine bein' named aft'r a dragon. D'ye reckon they're real then? Those fire-breathers?" Steve chuckled. Draco briefly questioned why people were always laughing whenever he spoke to them. Was he really that funny? Or was there something in the water these sea-people drank?

"Of course not." He replied, scoffing.

"O' course not." Steve repeated. "Y'know, there are many folk who reckon they're real. Them an' plenty o' other myth-cal creatures. Won't see many out 'ere... Ha! See, sea.. Reckon there are plenty water creatures, though. Hidin' in the depths..."

"That sounds stupid."

"Nothin's stupid, Draco Dragon. 'Til som'thin is proven to be false, then we 'ave to think that i's true." Steve blinked slowly. "We can't dive deep 'nough to discover 'em, prob'ly don' wanna be found."

"Or maybe myths are myths." Draco said.

"Or maybe myths 'r' myths. We don' know. But it's best to keep an open mind." He stretched, reaching his short arms to the sky. "Well, tha' should do it. You put yer clothes on now, then go up to see the Cap'n, she'll be in 'er Quarters on the other end o' the ship, can't miss the door. I best be off back to work." He stood, wiggling his toes, and strode away. He popped his head around the curtain second after he had left, grinning. "Oh, and by the way, welcome to Spew, Draco Dragon."

As Draco hissed and pulled the scratchy material over his red skin, he wondered what the fuck Steve was on about. What the Hell was Spew?

* * *

A couple of seconds later Draco was stood outside, knocking on the door Steve said the Captain would be behind. He found it odd to think that, just yesterday, he had been in the same situation, yet on a different ship. How had everything changed so quickly. The Captain's voice, less shrill now she had calmed down, called for him to enter, and he opened the door.

Inside, the Captain was alone, without their hot-headed ginger friend. The Captain was hunched over their desk, several maps spread out in front of them. She looked up when Draco entered, and flashed him a quick smile. "Hello, Mr. Malfoy. I guess Steve fixed you up, then?"

"It hurt like hell." Draco complained, and the girl (or should he say woman?) rolled her eyes.

"Don't be a baby. It doesn't hurt that badly." She took one last look at her map, and then stood up straight, walking over to Draco and shaking his hand. "Well, Mr. Malfoy, my name is Hermione Granger, and this is my ship."

"Uh, Steve called it... Spew?" Draco said, as he and Hermione sat down next to the desk.

Hermione groaned. "I've told them to stop calling it that. The ships full name is 'The Ship Purposed for the Exploration of Water', but of course that's too long to keep saying. I've said to shorten it to 'S.P.E.W.', but now everybody just says 'Spew' instead." She sighed. "It can't be helped, I guess. So, you're certain that you were just on that ship to learn the ropes? No... hidden agenda, or anything?"

"No!" Draco said, exasperated. "Why do you keep asking me that? I was just on the ship to see what it's like, my father made me do it, I have no idea what you mean by 'hidden agenda'!"

Hermione nodded. "I believe you, but... You have to understand, that ship had no ordinary purpose. It was carrying something that we believe is very important, something that Voldemort wanted very badly. This map," Hermione pointed to an old, weathered piece of paper that was in the middle of the table, "could lead to something... well, I don't know. Amazing."

"So you raided the ship to... retrieve it?" Draco asked, looking at it. It was written in a language he didn't understand, and the ink was blotchy.

"Well," Hermione blushed slightly. "The original intention was to destroy it, but... it's so interesting, I couldn't get rid of it. Who knows what it might lead to? And if Voldemort wanted it, it could eventually give us an advantage, over him!"

"Wait, wait, I've heard that name before." Draco frowned. "Who's Voldemort?"

Hermione looked at him in surprise. "Who's... You don't know? Have you been living under a rock? Well, I suppose since your father was in league with him you'd never need to know, but... You truly don't know who Voldemort is?"

"No! And what do you mean, my father's in league with him?"

"I... It's a very long story, Mr. Malfoy." Hermione shook her head.

"We have time."

"…Okay. I guess it started around twenty-five, thirty years ago..."

Upon closer inspection of whoever she had saved, Hermione decided that they were definitely not Colin.

Their skin was too red (Colin knew how to avoid sunburn, everybody had made sure of that), his hair was so blond almost white, he was too tall (unless Colin had had a sudden growth spurt, which Hermione doubted) and overall he just didn't fit the body shape Colin had. In fact, the person was probably around Hermione's age, nowhere near Colin's. So who was he? When Hermione had heard Colin, she was sure it had been Colin, calling for help she'd risked her life to go and rescue him. But in the thick smoke, she couldn't see; she must have picked up the wrong person. What if Colin was still on board the ship? He'd probably have been burnt alive by now!

Hermione ordered a couple of the crew to tie the person up against the mast. Hermione didn't know who they were, or what they knew about Voldemort. They could be working alongside him, they could be anything. If they were restrained, she and her crew could question them.

She turned to her First Mate, Ginny, who was fixing her with a stare. "They aren't Colin, Hermione."

"I realised that, Ginny."

"So who are they?"

"I don't know. On the ship, I couldn't see, they looked enough like Colin then. But... now they don't." Hermione rubbed the back of her neck.

"We have no idea who they are, they could be dangerous." Ginny warned.

"That's why we're tying them up, Gin." Hermione sighed. "I'm sure it was Colin's voice... what if he's still on board?"

"We can't go back, Hermione. The fire's too big now." Hermione looked over at the ship, which lit the night sky like a lantern. Ginny shifted her weight from one foot to the other and nudged her friend. "Hey, at least whatever-it-was that Voldemort wanted is destroyed now, right?"

"Ehh..." Hermione's voice rose a few octaves, and Ginny's eyebrows raised.

"Right, Hermione? ...Hermione I swear to God..." Ginny growled, as Hermione pulled a scroll of paper from one of her pockets. "Oh my God, Hermione, you didn't!"

"I did." Hermione blushed slightly. "I was curious, Ginny! It's a map, I think. What would Voldemort want with a map?"

"I don't know, but we didn't board and set fire to a ship to not destroy something Voldemort's after! Now he can just have one of his minions board our ship and take it from us." Ginny ranted, throwing her hands into the air. "I thought you were smart, Hermione!"

"I am smart." Hermione said defensively. "But think, if Voldemort wants this, then it has to be important, right? We could use this."

"How?"

"I don't know, we'll have to actually look at it first." Hermione shrugged.

"Well, I say we toss it overboard and hope the fish eat it." Ginny said, making a grab for the paper.

Hermione stood on her tip-toes to keep it out of Ginny's reach. "And I say we look at it before getting rid of it, Ginny. Who's the Captain here?" Ginny pouted, and Hermione frowned. "Come on, Gin. Just one little look. It could turn into another adventure? I know you like adventures."

"… I do like adventures." Ginny conceded, lowering her hand. "Just one look, and if it's not interesting..."

"I'll rip it into pieces, I promise." Hermione said, with both of them knowing she would do no such thing. But the idea was there. Ginny rolled her eyes, and Hermione put the paper back into her pocket. She'd look at it more closely later.

At that moment, a noise came from the mast. The person Hermione had found had woken up, and was trying to speak, but he sounded more like a dolphin than a person. Hermione and Ginny shared a look, and Hermione drew her cutlass as she approached the person, raising it to their throat. They opened their eyes, panicked, and Hermione noticed they were grey. That settled it, the person definitely wasn't Colin; Colin's eyes were brown.

"If you aren't Colin, who are you?" Hermione asked, her heart beating quickly.

All that came out of their mouth was a gurgle of wordless nonsense. Hermione bit back a groan of frustration... perhaps they were deaf? If Hermione was going to sign to them, she'd have to lower her sword. And she'd have to cut the ropes so that they could answer... and who said they even knew sign language anyway?

But then the person spoke. "I-I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, heir to the Malfoy estate, please don't kill me!"

Hermione half thought about lowering her sword. The guy was obviously scared shitless...

"Malfoy? As in Luicus Malfoy, right?" Ginny piped up, and the boy - Draco - looked over to her, wincing for some reason.

"Y-yeah, and he'll be super angry if anything happens to me, so..." He trailed off, and Hermione lowered her cutlass. Ginny walked over to them and leaned over to whisper in Hermione's ear.

"'Mione, maybe Malfoy sent his son to supervise the transport of that map. He might know something."

"You're right Ginny." Hermione replied in a hushed voice, before raising it to talk to Draco again. "What were you doing on that ship, Malfoy?"

"Uh... Business studies." Draco said. "Learning about the sea... and stuff. For when I'm older, taking over the business and everything."

"He's lying." Ginny whispered. "Oi! Why would you need to go on a boat if all you'll be doing is sitting in an office signing papers?"

Draco made a face. "That's what I said! All I'll have to do when I'm in charge is supervise, it's all maths, that's exactly what I said to Blaise. There was no reason for me to go on that ship, I told my father so, but no, that wasn't good enough for him, he wanted me to get experience. Look how that turned out! I lost all my money gambling, almost died in a fire, and now I've gotten kidnapped by pirates!"

Hermione and Ginny barely stopped themselves from bursting out laughing. "Yeah," Hermione whispered to Ginny. "Like he knows anything."

"Snape's more likely to be involved with Voldemort than this idiot." Ginny agreed. She paused. "So what do we do with him, then?"

Hermione frowned. "I... Well, let's untie him, for a start, it can't be comfortable." She swung her blade, Draco flinching as she neatly cut through the ropes. Without them holding him up, Draco collapsed onto the floor, hissing in pain as the wood contacted his blistered skin. "And sort out his burns."

"Those aren't from the fire, though, that's sunburn." Ginny pointed out.

"Eh, I'm sure we can fix it either way." Hermione assured her. "Steve!" At the call of his name, a sailor walked over from whatever he had been doing. He was short and kind of round, a bit like a pig- less pink than a pig, but just as stout, dirty and hairy. He wore a rather stereotypical black pirate hat over his grey, thinning hair (it was hiding the bald patch that he refused to admit was there); his hands were covered in wrinkles, and his face only sagged when he stopped smiling.

"Aye, Cap'n?" The old man's voice was croaky but lilting, it reminded Draco briefly of waves crashing against the shore.

"Steve, could you take Mr. Malfoy down below and fix his skin problem? Then bring him back up to my quarters, we're going to have to have a little talk." Hermione ordered, before spinning on her heels and leaving.

"Sure thing." Steve called to her, reaching under Draco's armpits to haul him up.

"I can get up myself, you know." Draco complained.

"Sure thing." The old man laughed, steering Draco below deck to an area curtained off by a dirty what-once-was-white cloth. "Strip then, let's have a look-see."

Even though Draco had spent most of his childhood being dressed and undressed by his family's servants, he still found it uncomfortable getting naked in front of Steve, mostly because of the fact he was a man, and an old one at that. As he pulled his legs out of his trousers one at a time, Steve clambered up onto a stool, then a counter, and used some empty shelves as a foot-holder as he climbed a cabinet. At the top of the cabinet, arranged neatly in a line, were a bunch of boxes and jars. One of Steve's wrinkly hands grabbed a box to the far right, then he descended back to the floor.

As Steve set about doing whatever it was he was doing (Draco didn't care), Draco sat down on a small table, and took a chance to look around the room they were in. Not that there was much to look at. There were a bunch of jars and pots, and boxes, and a couple of books, but nothing special. "Um, what is all this?"

"The jars? Aye, this is our little emergency room. The Cap'n let's me potter around in here 'cause once I told 'er 'ow I'd like to be a Doct'r one day. She got most o' this stuff from a tall fella she's friends with, 'e's got quite a bit of a garden, so I'm told." Steve looked over his shoulder and grinned at Draco. "This plant 'ere should calm yer skin down. 'M mixin' it with a bit o' sea water, probl'y gonna hurt a bit... But it'll do the trick, aye, sure thing." He grabbed a jar of sea water and poured a couple of drops into the mortar he was crushing the plant into, continuing to pound the pestle into the stone base. "Then it'll be simple t' manage yer skin. Just cover i' up and try to exp'se yerself grad-u-lly." The old man spun on his toes, walking over to Draco with the paste he had created. "They didn' try much to 'elp you on yer ship, did they, boy?"

"Uh... Well, they were going to, but..." Draco faltered as he looked at the thick, green paste. "Are you really going to put that on me?"

"Sure thing." Steve nodded, laughing shortly. "It's gonna sting a bi', mind." And with that, he thrust his chubby, dirty fingers into the green paste, and began to spread it across Draco's burnt shoulder.

Draco let out a blood-curdling scream; the paste burned worse than anything he had ever experienced before. It was most likely the salt from the seawater that stung against his raw skin like a thousand ants biting him all over. "Ach, don' be such a baby." Steve chuckled. "Gotta lay it on thick, 'ere, fix y' up."

By the time Steve had covered all of the areas and rubbed the green, bumpy paste in (much to Draco's complaint) Draco's body had all but gone numb from the pain. Steve grabbed some clothes from another section behind the curtain, and placed them beside Draco. "Dun put them on yet, y' need to le' it dry first. Oth'wise yet clothes'll be all sticky." Draco agreed, thinking more about how it would hurt if he put the clothes on. A small part of him thought about just staying naked, but he couldn't bring himself to walk outside naked. Aside from how people might laugh at him, it would also be undignified... and he might get sunburn in... less than pleasant places... "Le's talk, t'pass the time."

"Whatever." Draco mumbled, and the old man laughed, pulling the stool from the cabinet to sit across from Draco.

"Y' not very soci-a-ble, are you? Wha's yer name? 'Ermi-ne called yeh 'Mister Malfoy'."

"Well, that is my name." Draco replied shortly. He was mostly trying to keep his answers short because he could sense a whine in his voice.

"Odd firs' name, 'Mister'." The old man laughed. "Fancy callin' your son 'Mister'. Y' wouldn't catch me callin' my chil'ren 'Mister', though suppose i's what they do in those posh places o' yours."

"My name isn't Mister, it's Draco." Draco snapped. The man laughed louder.

"Oh, as if tha's any better."

"It's Latin."

"'N' my names from the Bible. I think. Steve, by the way. Ev'ryone calls me Steve." The man laughed. "Latin... What's it mean?"

"Dragon."

"Aye, imagine bein' named aft'r a dragon. D'ye reckon they're real then? Those fire-breathers?" Steve chuckled. Draco briefly questioned why people were always laughing whenever he spoke to them. Was he really that funny? Or was there something in the water these sea-people drank?

"Of course not." He replied, scoffing.

"O' course not." Steve repeated. "Y'know, there are many folk who reckon they're real. Them an' plenty o' other myth-cal creatures. Won't see many out 'ere... Ha! See, sea.. Reckon there are plenty water creatures, though. Hidin' in the depths..."

"That sounds stupid."

"Nothin's stupid, Draco Dragon. 'Til som'thin is proven to be false, then we 'ave to think that i's true." Steve blinked slowly. "We can't dive deep 'nough to discover 'em, prob'ly don' wanna be found."

"Or maybe myths are myths." Draco said.

"Or maybe myths 'r' myths. We don' know. But it's best to keep an open mind." He stretched, reaching his short arms to the sky. "Well, tha' should do it. You put yer clothes on now, then go up to see the Cap'n, she'll be in 'er Quarters on the other end o' the ship, can't miss the door. I best be off back to work." He stood, wiggling his toes, and strode away. He popped his head around the curtain second after he had left, grinning. "Oh, and by the way, welcome to Spew, Draco Dragon."

As Draco hissed and pulled the scratchy material over his red skin, he wondered what the fuck Steve was on about. What the Hell was Spew?

* * *

A couple of seconds later Draco was stood outside, knocking on the door Steve said the Captain would be behind. He found it odd to think that, just yesterday, he had been in the same situation, yet on a different ship. How had everything changed so quickly. The Captain's voice, less shrill now she had calmed down, called for him to enter, and he opened the door.

Inside, the Captain was alone, without their hot-headed ginger friend. The Captain was hunched over their desk, several maps spread out in front of them. She looked up when Draco entered, and flashed him a quick smile. "Hello, Mr. Malfoy. I guess Steve fixed you up, then?"

"It hurt like hell." Draco complained, and the girl (or should he say woman?) rolled her eyes.

"Don't be a baby. It doesn't hurt that badly." She took one last look at her map, and then stood up straight, walking over to Draco and shaking his hand. "Well, Mr. Malfoy, my name is Hermione Granger, and this is my ship."

"Uh, Steve called it... Spew?" Draco said, as he and Hermione sat down next to the desk.

Hermione groaned. "I've told them to stop calling it that. The ships full name is 'The Ship Purposed for the Exploration of Water', but of course that's too long to keep saying. I've said to shorten it to 'S.P.E.W.', but now everybody just says 'Spew' instead." She sighed. "It can't be helped, I guess. So, you're certain that you were just on that ship to learn the ropes? No... hidden agenda, or anything?"

"No!" Draco said, exasperated. "Why do you keep asking me that? I was just on the ship to see what it's like, my father made me do it, I have no idea what you mean by 'hidden agenda'!"

Hermione nodded. "I believe you, but... You have to understand, that ship had no ordinary purpose. It was carrying something that we believe is very important, something that Voldemort wanted very badly. This map," Hermione pointed to an old, weathered piece of paper that was in the middle of the table, "could lead to something... well, I don't know. Amazing."

"So you raided the ship to... retrieve it?" Draco asked, looking at it. It was written in a language he didn't understand, and the ink was blotchy.

"Well," Hermione blushed slightly. "The original intention was to destroy it, but... it's so interesting, I couldn't get rid of it. Who knows what it might lead to? And if Voldemort wanted it, it could eventually give us an advantage, over him!"

"Wait, wait, I've heard that name before." Draco frowned. "Who's Voldemort?"

Hermione looked at him in surprise. "Who's... You don't know? Have you been living under a rock? Well, I suppose since your father was in league with him you'd never need to know, but... You truly don't know who Voldemort is?"

"No! And what do you mean, my father's in league with him?"

"I... It's a very long story, Mr. Malfoy." Hermione shook her head.

"We have time."

"…Okay. I guess it started around twenty-five, thirty years ago..."


	6. In which Draco becomes an unpaid crew member

"It started around twenty-five, thirty years ago. In truth, the story belongs a lot long before that, possibly when Voldemort was born. But nobody knows a lot about how he started out... Around thirty years ago, he began recruiting, finding pirates and asking them to join him, to work alongside him for a common goal - controlling the entirety of the Pacific Ocean. Many people joined him, others agreed to help him out of fear... He terrorised the sea, attacking islands and ports and stealing resources, and, all in all, being a total dick, I guess.

"That was when the Order of the Phoenix was created. A man named Albus Dumbledore also began recruiting, to stop Voldemort, and a number of ships agreed to join. One of them... One of them was called 'The Marauders Map', and it was crewed by only four people, can you imagine? I've been told it was quite a big ship, but they were able to manage it, all on their own. They called themselves Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, but their real names were Remus, Peter, Sirius and James... James Potter. Life was pretty great for them, chasing down Voldemort's pirates, chasing down other ships with money, generally causing a nuisance... But it didn't last.

"Peter... I don't know what happened. I don't know whether somebody approached him, or he'd always been... I don't know. But Peter betrayed his friends, helped Voldemort sink The Marauders Map, and then he joined him. The other three went on to sail their own ships, James found a crew and captained The Lightning Bolt, named because it was the fastest ship anybody had ever seen; Sirius and Remus decided to get a ship together, they called it the Wolfstar, it's pretty fast too. And sneaky, it hardly makes a sound as it shoots through the waves... Anyway, James spent less and less time at sea, because he'd realised... How do I put this? Let me go back a second. Before Dumbledore created the Order, James and his friends were still pirates. One day he and his friends stopped for the night in a place called Cokeworth, it was there he met a girl called Lily; Lily Evans. He fell in love with her at first sight, Lily... less so. She thought he was an arrogant prat, but James swore one day he'd convince her that she was his true love. He spent less and less time at sea, because he was trying to show Lily how much he loved her. Some time along the way, she began to love him back. They bought an inn by the sea called Godric's Hollow, where..."

"Granger, no offense, but how does this love story fit in to the rest of the tale?" Draco cut in. As he'd been listening, the ship around him had melted away, but it jilted back as he broke the silence. It wasn't that he didn't like romance stories (it had always been a center focus when he was playing with his dolls as a child), but he had asked her about Voldemort, not James Potter and Lily Evans.

"Well, if'd you shut your mouth, I'd tell you." Hermione replied. Her tone was polite, though her words were far from it. Draco rolled his eyes, and Hermione continued.

"They bought an inn by the sea, called Godric's Hollow, where, soon after, Lily gave birth to a little boy, which they named Harry. By then James had pretty much given up piracy, though of course he tried to help all he could with defeating Voldemort. Voldemort was jealous of The Lightning Bolt, however- did I mention how it was possibly the fastest ship on the waves?"

"Yes."

"He was jealous of its speed, and he wanted it for himself. Several times, he sent threats to the Potters, practically ordering them to hand over the ship. Of course, James would never have willingly given Voldemort something that could help him. He organised with Sirius to give The Lightning Bolt to him only weeks after Voldemort's third warning.

"However, they were too late. Voldemort sent one of his most loyal followers to Godric's Hollow. She burnt the inn to the ground, and stole The Lightning Bolt. By the time Sirius arrived, the house was no more, and..." Hermione drew in a breath. "And there were soldiers everywhere. They saw him, recognised him as a pirate, and arrested him for piracy. At least, that's what we believe. We don't know where he is."

"Is it possible he was the one who did all that?" Draco asked, and Hermione looked at him, her expression puzzled.

"I... I guess it is possible. I never thought of it like that before, but... it's only speculation that Bellatrix has the boat. Nobody's seen it since. Sirius..." She trailed off, sounding mildly horrified at the thought. "When everything calmed down around the inn, Dumbledore went himself to see what was left. And all that was left was Harry."

"You mean his dead body, right?" Draco asked.

"No, Harry. He was still alive, somehow, when the fire was put out." Hermione insisted. "Nobody knows how he survived, by all accounts he should have died from the heat of it, even if the fire never reached his crib, but... He survived. Voldemort lay low for the next fifteen years, or so. Nobody knew where he was, or what he was doing... As far as many of us knew, he'd given up. But he hadn't. He bid his time, building from scratch six of the ships that now head his fleet. And now he's started terrorising the seas again..."

"And the Order of the Phoenix is going to try to stop him again, right?" Draco asked. Hermione nodded. Draco yawned, stretching. "Okay, I think I get it now. But where does my father come into all of this?"

"He signed an agreement with Voldemort, agreeing to supply Voldemort's ships with food, drink, and ammunition, in return for safe passage through areas his ships frequent. Aside from that, many of Malfoy's ships have also delivered items Voldemort has found interest in right to his front door, in a manner of speaking." Hermione explained. "Including this map." She gestured to the map that was still on the table. "I'm not sure why he wanted it, or what it says, just yet, but I'm going to find out."

"How? It's in some ancient language." Draco complained, looking it over.

Hermione shook her head. "No, not that ancient. It wasn't too long ago that it was the official language of most Spanish colonies... It's Nahuatl. The paper's quality does suggest that it was made a long time ago, though. I know a bit of the language, I'd hardly call myself fluent, so firstly I'm trying to match up the land-formations with some of the areas on my maps, see?" Draco moved to look closely at the maps that were around the small, old paper. "But a lot could happen within then, and now. The ins and outs of the islands and coasts could have changed, I don't know... Anyway!" Hermione clapped her hands together, and Draco looked up. "We still haven't discussed what you're going to do."

"W-what I'm going to do?" Draco stuttered. "No, no, I don't do this whole ship thing. If it weren't for my father threatening to cut me off, I wouldn't even have been on the Endeavour in the first place! I can't take a place in your crew."

"I don't want you to be a part of my crew." Hermione snapped back. "I'm talking about where you want me to drop you off."

"Why don't you want me to be a part of your crew?" Draco said, frowning.

"You have sunburns all over your upper body, you stumble around on the deck as though your drunk and you almost pissed yourself at the sight of my sword!" Hermione listed.

"It was at my throat, what did you expect me to do?!"

"Have some composure, at least! Why are you complaining, you just said you didn't do, and I quote, the 'whole ship thing'!" Hermione huffed, blowing a stray piece of hair away from her face. "Look, is there anywhere you want us to drop you off?"

Draco took a few deep breaths. "My home is at Wickwitt."

"Mr. Malfoy, with all due respect, I am not turning my ship around and going all that way back to Wickwitt, especially when that is the way your fellow crew are going, we'd be hung in an instant." Hermione said, smiling insincerely.

"Then... Drop me off anywhere, I can find my own way home." Draco said, adding hurriedly, "anywhere with a dock, that boats frequent."

"Of course. I wouldn't maroon a person on an island for no reason." Hermione said, looking away.

"I didn't say you would."

"You suggested it from your tone of voice."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"All I was saying is that..."

"I understood what you were saying perfectly well, Mr. Malfoy."

"You didn't let me finish..."

"I don't think I really need to."

"Well if you would just shut that..."

"THAT... is enough, Mr. Malfoy." Hermione stood up. "We are both very tired, it has been a long day, and it is almost morning. I am going to take a short nap, I suggest you do the same below deck." When Draco didn't move, she added, "that was your cue to leave, Mr. Malfoy."

"Fine." Draco stood up, and left the room, letting the door bang behind him.

"Well, that was interesting." Draco jumped as the red-headed girl the Captain had been speaking with before appeared in front of him, her arms crossed, and eyebrows raised humorously.

"Ah..." Draco almost screamed, but swallowed it at the last second. He didn't want to sound scared, or anything. "Ah... Um... Who are you?"

"Ginny." The girl, Ginny, smirked, holding her hand out for him to shake. "I hope you realise that we aren't going to divert our course just to help you get home."

"Yes, of course I knew that." Draco lied, shaking her hand. He had kind of been hoping that there would be a port somewhere that they would stop at soon, of course he now saw that was too much to ask for. Luck really wasn't on his side lately.

"Good. And I hope you also realise that you can't just loaf about, right?"

"Huh?"

"If you're going to stay on this ship, you'll need to help out; that's what I'm saying." Ginny expanded, smiling at him.

"Oh."

"Oh is right, Mr. Malfoy, or can I just call you Malfoy? It's easier." Ginny shrugged. "So is your 'oh' a 'sure, fine, let's do this', Malfoy? Because I have a deck that really needs swabbing..."

"But Granger, I mean, the Captain, ordered me to go below deck and... uh... recover the sleep I lost during the night." Draco said, seeing that the sky was beginning to lighten.

"Oh, you think you're the only one who was up all night?" Ginny said with fake sympathy. "I'm sure you're very used to getting your own way, Malfoy, but on Spew it's going to be different. Everybody on board is tired, and I have set aside time for everybody to catch up on sleep, however it's a rota. And you aren't first. Sorry!" She didn't sound sorry at all. Ginny pointed to a mop, and a bucket. "So, there's your job, I'll come get you when it's your turn to have your beauty sleep."

"What if I finish my job before it's my turn?" Draco asked seriously.

Ginny laughed. "I doubt that, Malfoy. But, in case you do, there are plenty of things that need to be done on board. Tata, now!" And with that, she slipped past him into the room Draco had just vacated.

"Isn't Granger meant to be...? Whatever." Draco shook his head, sighing, and walked over to pick up the mop. He supposed it was easier to just go along with whatever the pirates wanted, and they would let him leave as soon as they hit port. Surely that wouldn't take forever, they'd have to restock food and stuff...

"Oh! I forgot!"

"Ah!" This time Draco really did scream. He turned to glare at Ginny, who had popped her head out of the door. "What?"

"I forgot... Welcome to Spew! I hope you have a wonderful, life-changing time as a part of our crew." Ginny parroted. "Heh, that's something I say to all of our new crew members." She closed the door again, leaving Draco to stand gawping at where she'd been.

"C-c-crew member?!"

* * *

"Hey Hermione." At the sound of Ginny entering, Hermione opened her eyes and groaned.

"Ginny I'm trying to sleep." The Captain sighed, stretching.

"Sorry about that. I put Malfoy's kid on swabbing the deck, that should keep him busy for a while... what are we going to do about him, Hermione?" Ginny asked, walking over and sitting in the seat Draco had been sat in not half and hour ago. "If we let him go, and he tells his father we didn't destroy the map, and word gets back to Voldemort..."

"I know. Maybe we should just avoid visiting any ports until we've fully investigated this map." Hermione said. "I can't help but feel as though it's extremely important for some reason; we can't get rid of it."

"But Hermione, what about food, and..."

"I know. But what else can we do? Maybe the Flamels would let us borrow some supplies after we've helped them." Hermione said. "That should be our first concern right now. They're offering a lot of money if we can help them, and besides, we promised Dumbledore we would."

"I still think he's just trying to get us out of the way." Ginny mumbled. Hermione nodded.

"Yes, we all know that Dumbledore thinks we're too young to be in this War. Us, Harry, your brother... Neville, Luna... But never-the-less, he asked us to raid the merchant ship to get the map, while on our way to help the Flamels. And so that's the plan we're following."

"He asked us to destroy the map, Hermione."

"What Dumbledore doesn't know won't hurt him, Ginny." Hermione smiled. "Let's just focus on doing the other thing Dumbledore wanted us to do. Are we still on course for the island the Flamels are staying on?"

"Yes, Hermione, of course we are. It should only be a few more days until we get there."

"Good! Maybe Nicolas could help us with the map as well, I'm not exactly fluent in Nahuatl, and it seems to be some local dialect of the language I'm not too familiar with..."

"Well, I might not be too good with languages, but let me see if I can recognise any of the coastal patterns." Ginny grinned, and Hermione smiled back. Together, they began to see if they could figure out the map.


	7. In which Draco makes friends, and Hermione helps the Flamels

It took three days to get Draco's sleeping schedule back to normal. By that time he was also getting rather used to life on Spew. Just like on the Endeavour, nobody really took him seriously, however they were friendly with him. Ginny enjoyed poking fun at his mannerisms, Steve wouldn't stop calling him Draco Dragon (luckily, the nickname had not spread to the rest of the crew), and, curiously, the Captain refused to leave her quarters.

On his fourth day aboard the pirate ship, Ginny decided she had enough time to strike up a conversation with him. "So, Malfoy, what exactly did they teach you on that merchant ship of yours?"

"What do you mean?" Draco asked.

"I mean, what did you learn on the ship? Obviously, you know next to nothing about ships, that's why your Dad sent you away, right? So what did you learn?"

"I don't know." Draco looked away from her. "Mostly I swabbed the deck, you know... stuff like that... they were going to teach me how to tie a couple of knots, but I didn't get very far."

"Huh. Would you like to?"

"What?"

"Do you want to learn how to tie knots?" Ginny rolled her eyes, speaking in a mocking tone as she dragged out every syllable.

"Uh... I guess? Sure?" Draco wasn't sure what answer she really wanted out of him.

"Okay then! Hey! Lionel!" Ginny called out to one of the men who was tightening a rope against the banister. He looked up, and nodded. "D'you think you could teach Malfoy here a thing or two about tying stuff together?"

"Bring 'im over." The man called out. Ginny gave Draco a little push that sent him stumbling over to the tall pirate.

"Malfoy, this is Lionel, our 'rope expert'." Ginny introduced with a grin. "Lionel, this is Draco Malfoy, you know, he'll be staying on our ship for a while, and I don't want him to do nothing for his time here. So... could you show him the ropes?" Ginny giggled slightly at the bad pun, and Lionel rolled his eyes.

"I'd 'ardly call myself a rope expert, Miss Ginny, but sure enough." He tightly pulled at the thick rope he was holding, and gave it a pat. He stood up, and held his hand out to Draco. Draco shook it. "Let's see what you already know..." He took a couple of smaller, thinner ropes out of his pocket. "Always carry 'em around with me, 'elps with my nerves, y'know?"

"Yes." Said Draco, not really knowing at all, but not wanting to be rude. He'd learnt his lesson from his previous journey on the Endeavour; making friends could turn out to be useful in the long run, just like his mother had once told him.

"Well, I'll leave you to it! Thanks, Lionel!" Ginny poked her tongue out, and swaggered off to another part of the ship to talk with another sailor, Wayne Portchester, to make sure that they were still on the right course. With Hermione holed up in her 'study', hardly tearing her eyes off of the map (that Ginny still thought belonged in the bottom of the ocean), Ginny was stuck with all the work they normally did together. It was tiring, and to be frank, Ginny was sick of it.

After half an hour had passed since she'd dumped Draco on Lionel, she took a moment to peer at the pair out of the corner of her eye. Lionel was casually leant against the railing, Draco sat on a barrel beside him. The blond's face was scrunched up in concentration as he nervously manipulated one of the ropes. From the looks of it he was creating a pretty basic knot that was used to tie things down, but he was still having difficulty. He threaded the rope through a loop and pulled it taut. The knot collapsed, and the teen threw the rope down as he groaned loudly, half of the crew looking up to see what the commotion was about. Lionel was a good teacher, and didn't berate him, simply picking the rope back up and showing Draco exactly where he had gone wrong. Ginny could tell he was going slowly- she hadn't been kidding when she'd called him a 'rope expert', the man could complete extremely complicated knots in under a minute, yet his hands moved slowly as he explained to Draco (in a calm, level voice Ginny never would have had if she'd been teaching him) how the knot was tied.

In her opinion, the Malfoy boy was a fucking useless sailor. Ginny understood that not all people could succeed at practical skills first time, but he was proving to be borderline incompetent at all of the basics of sailing. What his father was thinking, sending the idiot to sea alone, was beyond her. If Ginny had been in charge of his well-being, she probably wouldn't have let him out of the house. Of course, if Ginny had been in charge of his well-being, she probably wouldn't have cared anyway.

She turned, stalking up one end of the deck to the other. It wasn't often that she felt the need to pace, but recently she'd felt caged. It was odd, since Spew was a place she'd often associated with freedom. Ginny guessed it had something to do with the extra duties Hermione had dumped on her. If Ginny had had it her way, the map would be at the bottom of the ocean... though the idea of an adventure was tempting. One thing was for certain, Ginny wouldn't be letting Hermione get this obsessed again if she could help it. Honestly, if Ginny had to spend another moment looking out at the ocean without seeing anything different, she would scream.

There was a shout from above. "Land ahoy, Quatermaster! An island, to the northeast!"

Ginny almost jumped for joy. The direction seemed to match up with the directions Dumbledore had given them, the island the Flamels currently lived at was finally in sight! She grabbed a hold of the rigging, swinging herself up a couple of holds before climbing up the rest until she was halfway to the crows nest. "How far away?"

"Not to far, ma'am, I'd say; keep a steady course in the direction we'll be there within a day, wind be willing!" The young lad perched excitedly on the edge of the crows nest replied. Ginny wasn't the only one who'd been itching to stretch her legs on land, it seemed. She climbed back down and went to the helm, but Wayne had already heard the news and had altered their course 5 degrees to angle them straight towards the island. She thanked him, and practically skipped her way to the room Hermione had holed herself up in since the raid on the merchant ship.

"Hermione!" Ginny yelled, as she burst through the door. Hermione jumped, almost knocking over a lantern perched beside her. She blinked a couple of times, having almost fallen asleep when the redhead arrived.

"Ginny, what is it?" Hermione asked tiredly.

"God, Hermione, you look terrible." Ginny said, momentarily forgetting her huge news. It was true. Hermione's hair was even more wild than usual, she'd managed to put her jacket on backwards at some point, and there were bags bigger than Spew's main mast sagging under her eyelids.

"Thank you Ginny." Hermione replied derisively. She stretched, yawning. "I just need a good nights sleep."

"You need several. When's the last time you slept?"

"I was about to, when you walked in." Hermione shook her head, to regain her focus. "I think I may have pinpointed one of the islands on the left corner of the map. Now all I have to do is..."

"Hermione, get your head out of that map for a minute, would you? You're drowning yourself in it." Ginny said, walking over to her friend. "I get that you want to find out where it is, but it isn't worth losing sleep over. Besides, you have other things to think about right now."

"Like what?" Hermione sounded genuinely concerned through her thick tiredness. "Is there unrest on deck?"

"I guess- they're excited, Hermione. We've spotted land. It's the Flamels island, we'll more than likely be there by morning." Ginny's eyes sparkled.

"Oh. That's good."

"I know! Urgh, I've felt so cooped up for the past few days. I hope you don't mind me disappearing on you while we're there, I want to do some exploring." Ginny said.

"That's fine, Gin'. You know it is." Hermione smiled. "I'm sorry. I've been so preoccupied with this map, I didn't even think about helping you organise and run the ship. God, you must feel stressed."

"Just a little." Ginny said, before grinning. "Nothing a bit of chocolate can't cure."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ginny, you know it's expensive, and that I'm keeping it in case Remus ever comes to pay a visit."

"But Hermione!" Ginny moaned, dragging out her friends name as she collapsed onto a chair pathetically. "I've been working myself to the bone for you, don't I deserve something in return?"

"You want a raise?"

"No I don't want a raise." Ginny snapped. "I want some chocolate." Her tone turned persuasive. "Just a little bit, you won't even miss it! Please?" She blinked slowly. "For me?"

Hermione sighed, and stood, walking over to a cabinet built into the wall. Inside the cabinet, amongst other things, was a small box. And in the box was half a bar of chocolate, the rest having already been eaten by Ginny, Hermione, and some others Hermione had chosen to share it with. "Fine. But only a little bit." Hermione said, breaking off a small amount from the corner. "A tiny bit, really. Hardly enough to sink your teeth into."

Ginny cheered as Hermione gave it to her, popping it into her mouth immediately. The dark treat was slightly bitter, but smooth as she swallowed, and Ginny smiled. "Thanks so much, Hermione."

"Yeah, yeah. You aren't getting any more."

"I won't ask for any more... for a while." Even if Hermione hadn't seen Ginny's smirk, she could have heard it from her tone. "So, yeah, we'll be reaching the Flamels by tomorrow morning. Remember, Dumbledore recommended us for the task personally, so we have to be presentable. I'll have the crew use a bit of the fresh water reserves to give themselves a wash down; you should wash too. And get a good nights rest... and also put your jacket on the right way."

"You sound like your mother." Hermione chuckled, and Ginny reached over to smack her.

"Hey, I'm just looking out for you, since you're doing such a good job right now." Ginny said. "If you're going to be huffy, I'll be on my way. Try not to get sucked back into map world again."

"No promises, Ginny!" Hermione called out as her friend left. As soon as she was gone, Hermione made an effort to clear away the things on her table. For all her temper and nagging, Ginny was right. She did need to sleep. As she crawled into the space she had created a bed inside, her last thought was that she hadn't asked Ginny how Draco was getting along. She hoped he wasn't complaining to much about his situation.

* * *

True to the young sailors estimation, Spew reached the small, forested island just after the sun came up. Draco felt better than he had in ages, having slept a solid 8 hours in his bed (he'd been sneaking bed earlier than everybody else, and nobody seemed to have noticed yet) and had his first bath (if you could call it that) in weeks. And now, to top it off, he was going to be walking on solid ground again! He'd grown homesick for the stable feeling of being on land, after the constant rocking of the boat that he'd only just found his balance for. Everybody else on board seemed to be happier as well, and were joking and laughing with each other.

Hermione had come out of her quarters for the first time in (what seemed like) forever, and Draco had noticed she'd made an attempt at making her hair behave. She also must have a spare set of clothes, Draco realised, as the white shirt she wore was actually white, and not the dirty, creamy white Draco was used to seeing.

Ginny, too, looked perkier than Draco had seen her so far. He'd overheard her talking to Lionel, apparently she was going exploring in the islands forest as Hermione helped the old couple who lived there, and she needed Lionel to watch over Spew while they were gone. Draco had noticed how she'd seemed antsy lately, maybe exploring would calm her.

The ship dropped anchor a couple of miles away from shore, and a couple of rowing boats were prepared to take them to the shore. All of the crew had wanted to go, but there had to be some people on board the ship to watch over it. Therefore, the crew had split into two groups: the first visiting during the morning, and the second visiting during the afternoon, switching over at midday. Only three of the crew were staying on the island for their whole stay: Ginny, Hermione, and Draco, whose reason for staying was that neither of the girls trusted him to keep out of trouble if he wandered off alone.

As they approached the island, there were two people stood waiting for them, waving at them happily. They were older than Draco thought they would be, both of them with long grey-silver hair tied back, away from their tanned, wrinkled faces. Their eyes were kind, but Draco couldn't really tear his eyes away from the wart on the side of the old man's nose. When the boats had hit the floor, the couple immediately approached them. The woman, wearing a slightly dirty, loose fitting dress that came just below her knees, hugged Hermione and patted her back, doing the same to Ginny, and then (much to his displeasure) Draco. The old man, whose glasses hung from a small rope around his neck, shook their hands in turn.

"Welcome to our small homestead, fellows," the old man said, "Albus said we should be expecting your help soon. My name is Nicholas Flamel, and this is my wife, Perenelle."

"Thank you. My name is Hermione, this is my First Mate Ginny... and this is Draco Malfoy." Hermione said. "My crew are also going to come ashore, but I promise that they won't stray very far from the beach."

"I, on the other hand, am off to see just how far I can get into that jungle of yours." Ginny said. "Very nice to meet you, I'm sure we'll speak again after Hermione's done here, bye." With the words rushed out of her mouth, Ginny made a beeline for the break of the jungle. Hermione seemed a bit unease at Ginny's rushed departure, but Nicholas and Perenelle simply laughed.

"Ah, she's spirited." Perenelle said. "I remember babysitting her mother." At Draco's look, she laughed again. "Yes, I am quite old, dear. Turning on 70 now!"

"More like 75..." Her husband mumbled jovially, earning himself a light slap. "You know you don't look any older than 63." Draco looked away, feeling grossed out by their affections for each other.

"You've done very well for yourself." Hermione said politely. "Ah, Dumbledore didn't tell me much about your situation, only that you could benefit from my help..."

Nicholas got the hint, and began to explain to the remaining two his life story. "Of course, of course. When I was younger, I worked as a free-lance scribe. That's when I heard about it."

"Heard about what?" Draco asked, genuinely curious.

"The Fountain of Youth, my dear." Perenelle said in a low voice. "Oh, yes, it exists, we're sure of it."

"A young man approached me one day, asked me to write out a little poem for a girl he was courting," Nicholas explained, "and I did it, I was bored, I would have done it for free if we weren't pretty much penniless. And I did it, and he then told me he had no money. Of course, I was, I was furious. All that work, for nothing. He said he'd give me water from the Fountain of Youth instead. Of course, I didn't believe him, who would, you know, who would, but I took the water anyway, he paid me back later. But the water did have magical properties. My wife and I, well, it lasted for three years, we only took small amounts at a time, and it did stop us aging. And we haven't died yet, despite being past our time, yes, we're still here. So, you see, we knew it had to exist. We've spent the rest of our lives hunting it down, going different places and looking up, looking up maps. And at last, we think we've found one, we've found a map that, that leads to the Fountain of Youth."

"So we're going to be escorting you there?" Draco said.

"No, Mr. Malfoy." Hermione shook her head. "Mr. Flamel and his wife have asked me to study their maps, since they aren't sure where exactly the Fountain of Youth is, what area the maps are referring to."

"That sounds boring." Draco commented, and Hermione narrowed her eyes. "I'm going over there instead, it looks more fun." He turned on his heel and walked back towards the beach, where some of the crew were setting up small shelters and carrying stuff from the boat underneath it. Hermione snorted as he left, apologising for his 'impolite behaviour'. Honestly, as far as Draco was concerned, she was the most boring pirate ever.

He spent the best part of the morning getting to know some of the crew better. Firstly, Steve and some of his friends decided to teach Draco how to fish.

"A lot of fish turn up 'round islands like this. A lot of them look too pretty t'eat, but it's a good source of meat, don't ya think?" A guy named Akakios (though most called him Aka) said. He'd once been a fisherman, but he'd had little luck fishing after around a decade of being in the business, so he'd become a sailor to keep his family comfortable. Though he hadn't intended to become a pirate, Hermione offered him good wages, so he couldn't complain.

"Uh, sure." Draco replied. Honestly, he found the whole rod-fishing concept confusing. Another of the group, Lei, had wanted to show them all a form of hand-fishing he'd learnt when he was younger. There had been a river that was excellent for it, however the fish had congregated up stream, and Hermione had forbidden them to go past the tree-line. "I don't see how Ginny gets to go into the jungle, but we can't."

"Well," said the final member of the group, Dermid, who had been working on Spew since the beginning. He made it out as if he had known Hermione during her childhood, and Draco thought about asking her about it later. "Well, Hermione has known her for a long time. They're very close, and they trust each other with their lives."

"Are you saying she doesn't trust us?" Draco snapped.

"Of course not." Dermid shook his head. "I'm just saying that Hermione has faith that Ginny'll come back before we leave. I don't think she'd let you anywhere near that forest, there could be animals in there, and how would you defend yourself? You can't even lift a sword."

Draco grumbled something under his breath, and yanked his rod back as he felt a pull. A small, grey fish wriggled around on Draco's hook, so small it wasn't bigger than his pinkie finger. The men laughed, and Draco pouted, throwing the fish back in the water.

"It's okay, Draco." Said Lei, placing a rather large fish he'd just caught into the bucket they were keeping it in. "It takes practise to become good at something. What's it they say? The thing about the city..."

"Rome wasn't built in a day?" Dermid supplied, his Scottish accent thick.

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Probably because they took breaks." Draco said. "I'm sick of the sun, I'm going to sit down." He put the rod back next to the rest of them, and headed for the small area of shade the crew had created. As soon as he sat down, he was lured into a game of Liar's Dice by three of the other crew members: a black-haired guy named Erez, and the brown-haired brothers Roy and Scotty. Luckily, there was no money involved, the main reason Draco agreed to play in the first place.

Around midday, however, his new acquaintances all had to go back to the ship. He was tempted to go with them, but they told him that he had to stay on the island, since that's what Hermione wanted. Draco kicked the sand under his feet as they pushed the small boat out to sea. They'd left most of the things that they'd brought behind, for the next half of the crew to use during their free time, and had taken the fish with them, to put out of the heat. Draco was suddenly struck with boredom. He looked over towards the other small shelter that had been there when they arrived: the Flamel's makeshift home, where Hermione and the elderly couple were hunched over a small desk, looking at maps. He decided, since there was nothing better to do, he'd go over and have a look at what they were doing.

"Hi." He greeted, as he approached. Hermione didn't look up from the maps, tracing a path with a finger. Nicholas looked up briefly to nod, his glasses slipping down his nose. Perenelle greeted Draco politely, and offered him a seat, which he took. She then offered him a drink of water, as well as some food, which he also accepted. Hermione looked over and commented how the old woman was spoiling him, and Draco wondered how she'd react if she saw how he'd been treated at home: this was common courtesy compared to it.

"I think I'll be glad for the distraction." The old woman said, sitting down across from him on the only other chair under the canvas. "All those maps and figures are confusing me a bit."

For a while, Draco and Perenelle talked to each other. Draco enjoyed telling her about the riches of his childhood, Perenelle having lived in a similar situation for a while with her first husband. She revealed to him that Nicholas was her third, and the love of her life, as far as she was concerned. Draco found the exploits of her love life quite interesting, recognising some of them as situations he made up when he was a child, playing with his dolls. Wanting to tell her more about his 'adventures' as well, he told Perenelle about the time he and Blaise had been climbing the rocks by the dock, and Draco had fallen off and almost broken his leg.

Even though Draco did find the conversation interesting, he soon got bored of it. "Hey, Granger, when are you going to be done?"

"Don't rush me, Mr. Malfoy." Hermione replied, not looking up. "I think... I've just about found an area that matches this map, but it may still take a couple more hours."

Draco groaned. "This is taking too long." He stood up. "Thank you for the company, Mrs Flamel..."

"Please, call me Perenelle, dear. Or Nellie."

"… But I think I'll be heading back to the beach now."

"Okay, then, dearie. Have fun!"

Down at the beach, Draco found himself surrounded by people he didn't really know as well. Before, Steve had been there to introduce most of them, but Draco found himself being bombarded with names from all directions. He knew he'd never remember any of them. Feeling alienated, he sat down in the corner of the shelter. He wasn't alone for long, however, as a boy not too older than him came and sat down next to him.

"Don't mind me sitting down next to you for a while, do ya? It's a bit too loud over there for me." He said, pointing to the gaggle of pirates sat bathed in the sun. "Uh, once again, I'm Henry."

"I'm not going to remember your name." Draco said, realising too late that was rude of him. "I mean, I've had to learn too many names today, they're all going to get muddled up."

"Well then, just call me Guy until you're less muddled." The boy conceded. "Aside from being a pretty common term for man, it's also my last name."

"Okay then." Draco nodded. "Um, my name is Draco."

"I know." Henry Guy replied, then his eyes widened with embarrassment. "I mean! I mean, like, you're the only new one on the ship, so it was easy to learn your name... from, like, other people." Draco nodded.

The two boys sat in silence for a while, and then Guy pulled a small dagger and a piece of driftwood of an equal size out of his pocket. At Draco's curious glance, he explained, "My dad taught me how to whittle. He's on another ship, see. My Mum... She died a couple of years ago, from an illness. Before that she used to play chess with me, since she couldn't go out much... We had to sell her set, once she died, to make ends meet... so I'm making a new one. I'm making all the pieces out of driftwood and jetsam, see, so I know they'll float if I lose them overboard- it'll be easier to get them back that way, see... Hey, you want me to teach you how to whittle? Woodwork is a lot of fun, really!"

Still bored, Draco agreed, and the two spent the rest of their stay on the island sat with knives in their hands, and a look of intense concentration on their face. One of the other sailors (Draco was half sure their name was Collie, until he said it out loud and they corrected it to Oliver) lent Draco a spare, but it was very dull. On one hand, this was a bad thing, because it made cutting the wood harder, however if it had been as sharp as Guy's, Draco would probably have been left with only one hand. As it was, when Hermione called out that she had finished helping Nicholas, and that they had to pack up, Draco's hand was covered in small cuts. It had been fun, though.

Draco went to speak to Hermione as the others took down the sticks they'd used to prop up the shelter. He feigned interest in what she had done, though they both knew he was simply trying to avoid packing up. As he approached, Hermione lifted her hands up to her mouth and yelled Ginny's name in a louder voice than Draco had ever heard her use.

"Small chance of her not hearing that." Draco commented, and Hermione rolled her eyes. "So, how are we going to fit everything and everyone plus the Flamels onto the boats?"

Hermione looked at him oddly. "What do you mean? The Flamels aren't coming with us."

"What? But what about the Fountain of Youth?" Draco asked her, frowning.

"We aren't going to find the fountain, Mr. Malfoy." Hermione shook her head. "Didn't you hear me this morning. I was helping them locate it, theoretically, on the map. I have no interest in actually looking for it."

"But... But... You're a pirate!" Draco exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air. "You're meant to be doing things like this! Hunting down treasure, racing to find mythical beings and legendary artefacts! And all you're concerned with is maps?"

"I think you need to stop listening to everything you hear about pirates, Mr. Malfoy." Hermione said humorously. "It's not like that... constantly. I helped the Flamels with their map, and in return they gave us some of their food, drink, and I also got a bit of money out of the deal as well!" She held up a brown bag that jingled as she shook it. "It also turns out that Nicholas learnt quite a bit of Nahuatl when he worked as a scribe, so he was also able to translate my map for me, isn't that great?" She grinned widely, her eyes sparkling.

"I guess?"

"No, it is! He's translated the island names on there, and I recognise half of them now! I was right, the coastal patterns have changed a bit, but I now know where it's talking about. And it's not to far from here, only a day or so away, and..."

"Hermione, I thought you promised me you'd focus on the Flamels map, not yours?" Both Hermione and Draco jumped as Ginny emerged from the trees, looking slightly angry.

"I did." Hermione said. "I helped them with their map before I mentioned the subject to them."

"But you were thinking about it."

"Not hard! Just a tiny little bit." Hermione shook her head. "Ginny, you know that I always put jobs in front of my own personal goals." Ginny sighed, but nodded. "And now that we know where the map points to, we can go look."

"If Nicholas gets word back to Dumbledore you didn't destroy the map, he's probably going to be pissed." Ginny warned.

"I know. But I think Dumbledore might be interested as well." Hermione said. She clapped her hands. "Now let's get back to the ship. I'm starving, and I'm pretty sure we'll be having fish tonight!"

"Great!" Draco cheered, rubbing his belly. "I'm famished too."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Malfoy, Perenelle gave you a large lunch, how can you be hungry?"

"I'm a growing boy."

"Or maybe you're a growing pig." Ginny snorted under her breath. Hermione laughed.

"Hey!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solid chocolate was not invented until the mid-1800s (this story is set in the 1700s), so for the sake of tasty treats, solid chocolate was created around 10-50 years prior to this AU.


	8. In which Draco, Hermione and Ginny go exploring

Having figured out the map, Hermione went back to helping out on the ship, which made Ginny feel slightly better about her life. Understanding one part of the map's mystery also gave Hermione a spring in her step; she practically danced around the ship. She'd also gotten a lot friendlier with Draco (not that Draco cared particularly, of course). In fact, she felt so bad about how he was being forced to stay on the ship that she let him read some of her books while he didn't have work to do. Draco found most of them boring, as they covered maps and nautical nonsense and ships, things Draco didn't really care for, yet he tried his best to read them.

When he wasn't boring himself with the books, he spent a lot of time with Guy, who had almost finished making all the pieces for his chess set ("And after that all I need to do is make a board, and we're off!"). Lei had given him a pair of thick gloves as a present when he'd seen how many cuts were on Draco's hands at dinner ("Eh, don't mention it. My folks make them for a living, I've got plenty that didn't pass their standards."), and more often than not they stopped the knife from hurting Draco when it slipped past the wood. It was really hard to cut through the bark, Guy told him that it was because of how dull the knife was.

"I'd give you a sharper one, but you could seriously injure yourself." Guy mused. "Focus on having less... accidents, then I think you can get a sharper one, and you can actually whittle."

When he wasn't whittling, Draco would paint the pieces. Guy had been saving up his money, and had bought some black paint some months ago. He was keeping it tightly sealed, and allowed Draco to paint some of them black as he whittled.

"I'm only going to paint one half of the set," Guy said, "because, well, for one thing, paint is expensive... but I also like the colour of wood. Even though it's almost always different colours, it's quite pretty, you know?" Draco nodded his head in agreement.

Hermione had also taken to teaching Draco how to climb rigging, as well as other things. "Ginny was right, you know, Mr. Malfoy. You do need to help out if you're going to be sailing with us, and the first thing to learn is how to get around the ship."

With all the activities he was doing, Draco hardly noticed the passing of the days, and the way the ship slid through the waves. He didn't really pay attention to the islands they passed, though other members of the crew often looked at them, wishing to stop again to fish (they'd enjoyed the meals of fish, which had just run out). In fact, Draco was so absorbed in what he was doing he got the fright of his life when, one-day, just as the sun was reaching it's highest point in the sky, Hermione yelled out to lower the anchor.

"Wha-?" He said, the knife slipping off his piece of driftwood again. He abandoned both objects, leaving them both next to Guy, and walked over to Hermione and Ginny to find out what was going on.

"Yep, according to the map, that's the island we want to go to." Hermione nodded, pointing to a large island not so far away. Draco's eyes followed her fingers, suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding. The island, apart from its small beach, and the large piles of rocks on either side of it (which blocked the view of the rest of the islands coastline), was covered in an ominous, dense jungle. Unlike the previous island they had visited, which was full of birdsong and wildlife, this island, from Draco's hearing anyway, was suspiciously quiet.

"Looks as though nobody's ever been there before." Ginny muttered, peering at the tree-line, which looked undisturbed.

"They must have been, or it wouldn't be on the map." Hermione reasoned, rubbing her pocket. She'd placed the map inside it, next to a small, blunt pencil, in case she needed it. She didn't think she would, but she wouldn't know until she got there. She turned to her crew, who had stopped what they were doing to see what would happen next. "Is there anybody who would like to go to the island? You can fish again, or just relax, as long as you are ready for a quick getaway, if we need to." A couple of men raised their hands, including Lei and Steve, Draco noticed. "Okay. Ready the boats! Lionel," she turned to the man Draco had come to know as one of the most responsible crew members on the ship. No doubts Hermione would be asking him to watch over it. "Would you prefer to come with us, or stay? Dermid can watch the ship." Oh. That wasn't what Draco was expecting. Luckily, Lionel shook his head. "No thank you, Cap'n. Though it sounds... interesting, I would much rather stay on board, make sure everything is in order." Hermione nodded in reply. "Fair enough. In which case, it's just going to be the three of us." Hermione said, grinning at Ginny.

"Three?" Draco asked, and Ginny rolled her eyes.

"You think we're leaving you unsupervised? You're coming with us, dummy."

Draco blinked in shock at Ginny's statement. "Uh, could I not? I don't really feel this whole exploring thing."

"Where's your sense of adventure?!" Ginny admonished. "C'mon, Malfoy, it'll be fun! We have no idea what's out there, it could be anything..."

"Which is exactly why I don't want to go!"

"Mr. Malfoy." Hermione cut in, forever the voice of reason. "I can understand your apprehension, and I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to do..."

Draco huffed. "At least somebody has some sense around here."

"...So if you'd rather stay here with Lionel, I'd be thankful for your help." Hermione smiled, her eyes lighting up in a way that caused Draco to shake with fear on the inside. "Now that we've stopped, we have access to a lot more things that need to be done. The underside of the hull has barnacles that need to be prised off… coincidentally, how long can you hold your breath?- and the deck needs to be swabbed, the hammocks need to be aired, the dishes washed, all of the knots need to be checked for wear and tear, I'd like the cannons to be cleaned out, somebody needs to take stock of everything in the hold... I'm pretty sure there's a list on my desk Lionel can fetch..."

"Urgh, fine, I'll come!" Draco snapped, pouting. "But I'm not happy about it!"

"You don't have to be. Just, don't complain verbally." Ginny said, walking past him to help lower the row boats into the water. Hermione smiled at Draco, and he stuck his tongue out at her, not caring how immature he was being.

* * *

The jungle was sweltering hot. Draco was sweating despite his light clothing. His feet hurt from walking. His shoes (and, as a result, feet) were wet from stepping in brown puddles that were more mud than water. Leaves and branches kept hitting him in the face. He was tired; he was thirsty; he was starving. And Hermione and Ginny showed no signs of slowing down, or lowering their enthusiasm.

"Just look at this plant, Ginny!" Hermione would exclaim. "I'd say it's a member of the Culcitaceae family, but it's leaves are thicker..."

"Oh my God, that guy is huge!" Ginny would gasp, running away from the group to stare a spider in the face. "Let's catch it and show it to Ron!"

"Ginny, that's mean!" Hermione would chuckle, also looking closely at the arachnid. "His fur has a slightly red tinge, how fascinating. His web pattern differs from what's usual for his species as well... Oh! Careful Mr. Malfoy!" Draco paused in his step as Hermione ran over to him. "Look, you almost crushed this little guy!" He held back a scream of horror as she held up another spider, this one ink black and glaring at him, in Draco's opinion. "Aww, look at him! Despite it's smooth appearance, his cuticle is quite rough. Would you like to hold him?"

"No!" Draco backed up. "I mean, we aren't here to look at flora and spiders and stuff, right? We're looking for treasure or something."

"I would assume so," Hermione said, placing the spider onto a branch and watching it scurry away fondly. "Most maps lead to something materialistic. But, in all honesty, this entire island is fascinating! I think we'll stay here a bit longer than I intended to, I'd like to come back with my notebook and take samples."

"Malfoy, that frog on your head has the most adorable spots!" Ginny cooed, and Draco was suddenly aware of a weight on his head. He heard a croak. This time he did scream, as he shook his head frantically.

"That's it! I'm going back, I'm going back." Draco shouted crossly. "Which way to the beach, I'm going back where arachnids and amphibians aren't trying to assassinate me!" He was not amused by how Hermione and Ginny burst into laughter at his tantrum.

"Mr. Malfoy, I'm sorry." Hermione apologised through tears of laughter. "We'll get back on course now, I promise."

Draco frowned, but continued to follow the two girls through the undergrowth, wishing he could have stayed on the beach with Steve. Little did he know, things weren't looking good for them over there either...

* * *

Up until around an hour and a half after the Captain, the Quatermaster, and Draco had left, Steve, Lei and some of the other pirates were having a whale of the time, competing with each other to see how many fish they could catch. But everything went wrong when Lei suggested they explore the rock formation to the left of the beach. He wanted to see if there were any rock pools on the other side of the large rocks, and, with the idea of boiled crab in their heads (and bellies), the pirates dropped their rods on the sand to climb over the sandy, crumbly rocks.

The other side of the beach wasn't a beach at all, but a bay that curved far more inland than the beach Spew had breached. It did have rock pools dotted near the shoreline, but that wasn't what they noticed first. Hidden from view by the rocks, a large ship, bearing three masts, bobbed along with the tide, steaming with activity. Breath came short as Steve crawled across the rocks to look at the name of the ship. Everybody watched him silently as his eyes widened. He ran back to them, his mouth opening and shutting, but no words coming out.

"What is it Steve?" They hissed, getting more worried by the second. "What ship is it? Whose is it?"

"T-The Diary." Steve gasped. "It's one of Voldemort's ships. 'Is people're 'ere too! An' we have no way of tellin' the Captain!"

* * *

"Hey, Hermione?" Ginny asked, glancing at Draco before turning to face her friend.

"Yes?" Hermione looked back briefly before cutting a vine in her way. She wiped her brow on her sleeve.

"I was thinking that... maybe Malfoy was right. We should be heading back now."

"What?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowing. They hadn't been in the jungle for long, she was sure, and Ginny loved adventuring! Why would they want to go back, especially since they hadn't found what they'd come for yet?

"What?" Draco repeated, wondering why Ginny was siding with him for once. He wouldn't reject her offer to leave, however- his feet were aching, his legs were numb, he had several bites from bugs that he was sure were poisonous, and he was probably dying from heatstroke. Not to mention he was hungry and thirsty.

"Well, I'm just saying," Ginny continued, avoiding Hermione's questioning look, "that we have been walking for a very long time, we don't know whether it's night or day because the canopy is so thick. Everybody could be worried about us, we told them that we didn't think we'd be too long."

"I see your reasoning, but we're so close to finding out what the map was leading us to, I just know it..."

"Well, actually, you don't." Ginny said quickly, cutting Hermione off with a judgemental look. "That map shows you the way to this island, not what's on it. The map says nothing about where on the island it's treasure is, if there is any treasure!"

"What are you saying, Ginny?"

"I'm saying I don't think there is anything here. I think that it's just a ruse, a joke, a prank or something- I should recognise pranks, I grew up with Fred and George, remember?"

"Well, if the map was pointless, why would Voldemort want it?" Hermione replied in the same shrill tone Draco had heard her speak in when they'd first met. Yep. It still grated on his nerves.

"Maybe he doesn't realise it's worthless yet, or maybe he set us up! Made it look like the map was 'oh-so-important' so that we would become interested in it, so that he could lay a trap for us or something! I don't know! But what I do know, is that this is probably a colossal waste of time and we should leave." Ginny stamped her foot, splashing a mud puddle beneath her feet. Some of the water got onto Draco's shoes, and he winced.

"Or maybe there is something here! Maybe there are two maps, did you think of that? One showing the general area of the island, and one that shows where the treasure is on the island-"

"That's stupid, why not put it on one map?"

"I don't know, as a test maybe? To keep the treasure safe? If you want something to stay a secret, then you don't put all the information on one map!"

"That's a lot of work for some measly treasure!"

"Maybe it is, let's just find the damn thing, then we'll find out whether the time we've spent hunting it down is worth it!"

"Hermione. My feet hurt, I am hungry and tired, and I have a gut feeling it's going to rain soon; we'll be soaked." Ginny said, her jaw clenching. "We can come back later, with more of the crew, do a full comb of the forest. But let's go back, and get some rest. We aren't prepared enough for this."

"You might not be, but I've been studying this map for days. I'm ready to find out what I've been hunting down, and we're doing it now."

"We should go back."

"I won't go back, not yet!"

"Look at Malfoy, he's going to keel over at any moment!" Ginny almost yelled, flinging her hand to point at the blond. Draco flinched, then grinned nervously. In his opinion, two people with guns arguing would not lead to anything good. "We all need a rest Hermione, we can't keep frog-marching on like this!"

"Yes, we can!"

"No we can't! We're at our limit!"

"We are not at our limit. He's at his limit," Hermione jerked her head at Draco, who had decided to wipe down a section of roots at sit down. He figured that he could have a rest, it wasn't like they'd be moving on soon, at least. "But only because he's never walked this far before, because he isn't used to this. You are, Ginny, so woman up!"

"Yes, I'm used to walking long distances, and in the heat, but not like this. You're pushing us too far, Hermione! We need a break!"

"We do not!"

"Yes we do!"

"Well, if you're so adamant that this is pointless, maybe you should just go back to the boat!"

"Well, if you're not going to listen to what I have to say, maybe I should just leave all together!"

"Maybe you should!"

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"I'll go then." Ginny snarled, turning around brusquely and pushing the trees apart to get away.

"Okay with me! Just leave!" Hermione glared at her friend. "But Mr. Malfoy and I will be finding that treasure. Come on, Malfoy." She stalked over to him and yanked him up by his collar.

"Wha-what?" Draco  _stuttered,_  having not fully following the conversation turned argument.

"We're going to find that treasure."

"But I'm tired too..."

"Oh! So you want to go with Ginny, do you?" Hermione snapped, pulling him away from the direction Ginny was heading. "You want to give up like her?"

"Well, it's not really giving up? I mean, she's all for coming back tomorr..." Draco trailed off as the angry brunette shot him a heated glare.

"But we're here today! What's wrong with you, Malfoy? Just the other day you were complaining about how boring I was, because I didn't hunt down treasure, but now that I am, we are, you want to turn back? Are you a coward, or something?"

"H-hey!" Draco pulled his hand out of her tight grip. "I thought you thought through things before you did them. How can two people possibly explore an entire jungle before collapsing from exhaustion?"

Hermione flinched, her expression hurt, though Draco wasn't sure what part of his statements were offensive. "Well, if that's how you feel." She said in a barely level voice. "If that's what you think, you can follow Ginny. I can do this on my own."

"Wait... hang on a second..." Draco called, as she ran off. "Granger! For God's sake..." Draco was suddenly, painfully aware that he was alone filled with bugs at least, at worst... he gulped. He could feel the eyes of a thousand hungry animals staring at him from all directions and legs and feelers of insects crawling on and up every inch of his body and  _oh my God was that a tiger growling behind me?_  "G-Granger? Come back, I've changed my mind, I'll come with you... Come back!"


	9. In which Draco gets his first view of Voldemort's followers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight violence in this chapter. It's nothing too bad, but if you want to avoid it it's from 'Draco didn't move' until 'Mr. Malfoy, are you okay?', as well as from 'Steve looked down' until about '...too young...'.
> 
> Also, just a heads up, an incredibly minor OC is both introduced and killed in this chapter.

Ginny grumbled to herself as she emerged onto the beach, blinking as her eyes were assaulted by daylight. The nerve of Hermione! Ever since she'd found that map, she'd been obsessed with it- wouldn't listen to reason. Ginny had thought that Hermione had calmed down after their visit to the Flamels... but it looked like she didn't know her friend as well as she thought. Well, either way, Ginny had had enough of Hermione's attitude. If Hermione didn't value Ginny's opinion as her First Mate, then Hermione didn't deserve Ginny as her First Mate.

That was when Ginny made her first bad decision of the day.

She decided to take one of the rowboats they'd brought to the island and row home. Never mind that the island she called home was a two week sail away on a ship, and she didn't have any water or food. That didn't matter. Ginny had had enough, and she wasn't going to wait long enough for Hermione to try and stop her from leaving.

"Carlos!" Ginny barked, jolting a lazy sailor out of their slumber under the shelter they'd set up. She briefly wondered why they were the only one there, but was too angry to think deeply into it. "When Hermione finally comes back from her demented search for that stupid, imaginary treasure, tell her that I've had enough, and that I'm taking a boat and going home." Carlos blinked slowly, and gave her a flimsy thumbs-up. "Also, tell her that she's a bastard with a one-track mind who has no care what-so-ever for her crew, and that I couldn't care less if she was stabbed through with a spear! Okay! I'm leaving!" A nod from the sleepy sailor was all it took, and then Ginny was pushing a rowboat off the beach, climbing in, grabbing the oars, and leaving. "Oh!" She yelled over her shoulder. "And her chocolate has always been disgusting!"

* * *

After around five minutes of being alone in the jungle, Draco tore through the undergrowth Hermione had disappeared into, screaming her name at the top of his lungs.

"Granger! Granger! Granger!"

"Mr. Malfoy." Draco yelped- Hermione was stood seconds away from him, hands on her hips. "Why are you screaming bloody murder? Anybody would think you were being chased by Voldemort himself!"

"I- you- well- you left me alone back there!" Draco tried to explain, bending over as he tried to catch his breath.

"You were scared of being alone?" Hermione sounded as though she couldn't believe it.

"N-no!" Draco snapped defensively. "But- wait- yes! I had every reason to be terrified since I have no way to defend myself! What if something had attacked me?"

"Oh." Hermione's hands fell to her sides, her face clouded in thought. "Yes... I... I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy. I was angry at Ginny, not you, and in my anger I forgot my duty to protect you. I... we'll have to get you something you can defend yourself with soon..."

Draco asked, "Could we go back now? We can always come back tomorrow, and I really am exhausted."

Silence filled the jungle as Hermione stood there, lips pursed as she thought through what Draco was saying. On one hand, he was probably right: they might not be able to find the treasure today, and she was getting tired as well. But she couldn't shake the feeling that they were standing seconds away from a life-changing discovery. How could Hermione just turn back after coming so far, and being so close?

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but yelled instead when the silence was broken by a loud clap of thunder. She jumped backwards instinctively, away from the noise that startled her; but her feet didn't connect with the ground. She gave another shout as she fell down a hole neither of them had seen, that had been hidden under the ferns.

"Granger!" Draco lunged forward to catch her, but she'd already disappeared by the time his hands reached where she had been. He stood awkwardly at the top of the hole she'd fallen down as rain began to filter in from the canopy. "Uh... Granger? You alive down there?"

A groan, and a string of curses floated up from the hole. "I think I've sprained my ankle... shit."

"Uh..." Draco looked around nervously, not sure what he should do in this situation. "What should I do?"

"Wait there, it's pretty big down here, I'm sure there's another way... Malfoy! Get down here!" Hermione suddenly yelled, her tone excited. "Didn't I tell you we were close? Oh my God, get down here now!"

Hoping for the best, he followed her orders.

* * *

The rain was only serving to make Ginny more miserable. It wasn't enough that she was hungry, thirsty and tired, but now she was soaking wet as well! And even though it only seemed to be a little thunder storm, probably caused by the hot weather they were having, Ginny knew you should never trust the sea. This little squall could easily turn into a tempest.

As she made her way further into the open waters, Ginny decided to take one last look back at the island her best friend was still on. Half of her hoped to see Hermione waving her hands on the beach, yelling her name, shouting for Ginny to come back, because Ginny had been right all along, and begging for her forgiveness.

But that wasn't what she saw.

Instead, she saw a large pirate ship floating ominously in a bay surrounded by rocks. A black flag that was emblazoned with a snake emerging, twisted around a skull, flew against the stormy grey sky.

"The Dark Mark..." Ginny breathed. "Voldemort?" Fear gripped her chest as she thought of Hermione, stumbling around in the forest, unaware of the threat that was lurking past the trees. And the only person there to help her was Malfoy, the kid who couldn't even tie a knot... the two of them helpless, ignorant and vulnerable, all because Ginny had gotten angry and left.

What if Hermione had been right? What if there had been two maps? It would take longer, but just having a map of this one island would be enough to find it... And whichever ship that was (from the number of masts it could have been The Diary, The Ring or even The Death Eater itself) must have the first map. And by now they most likely knew that Hermione had the second map. They could know that Hermione was there as well. They could be planning to ambush her. Ginny's eyes widened.  _God, they could kill her!_

That was when Ginny made her second bad decision of the day.

She dropped the oars she was holding. She stood up, making the boat rock perilously, and she dived into the ocean, beginning to swim for shore. It would be difficult, but she had to find Hermione before Voldemort's followers did. She had to make sure Hermione was safe... even if she didn't care about what Ginny thought. Because Hermione was her friend.

* * *

When Draco hit the sandy floor at the bottom of the hole, Hermione was nowhere to be found. Softly, he called out her name, looking around at the ink-black rocks that formed the walls of the hole.

"I'm over here, Mr. Malfoy!" Hermione called back, from a gap between the rocks. Draco slid between them easily, and his mouth dropped open at what he saw.

Light filtered down from cracks in the earth above them, rain dripping down methodically. The raindrops rippled the smooth, clear, shallow layer of water that rested below Hermione and Draco's feet. The water acted as though it was a mirror, reflecting the beauty of the cavern that the two found themselves in.

Every inch of the wall was covered in what looked like golden words written in the same scrawl as the map, that seemed to glow, filling the room with even more light, and making it seem... magical. As well as words, there were pictures, too, in every colour of the rainbow. Dolphins, and whales, and sharks, in all manners of blue and silver, swam around the room. Trees as tall as mountains curved along the roof of the cave. The whole place seemed ancient, and yet the pictures gleamed as though they had only just been painted there, as if the paint still had to set. Gingerly, Draco reached out and touched the long tail of a mermaid, whose amethyst-coloured scales shimmered. The cave wall was wet, but the paint was dry. In fact, it was if the colours of the cave were formed alongside it: the pictures seemed set into the stone, not painted on to it. "Granger, this is..."

"Amazing, isn't it?" Hermione couldn't keep the admiration out of her voice. She'd gotten her map out, and was scribbling something down on it's blank side. "This must be what the map was referring to."

"But..." Draco looked around. Aside from the two of them, the cavern was empty. "There isn't any treasure here."

"Knowledge, Mr. Malfoy, is the greatest treasure in the world." Hermione replied breathlessly. "I could spend my entire life in this cavern, just taking in all the information that's in here." Finishing her notes, she hurried over to the wall, stroking the painting of a small ship with black sails. "The paint looks so fresh, but this has to be over a century old! And the colour of these sails... it's like I'm looking into death itself!"

"Why do you think it's here? What's the point of all these drawings?" Draco asked, wondering what Hermione had written down.

"I don't know." Hermione said. "It's... too much! Look, there's the way out, we'll make our way back to the ship, and then tomorrow we can come back. We'll bring a lot of paper, some pencils, we'll write down all the information! This is so cool!" Her eyes scrunched up as she giggled. "I mean, just look at it! Look! This animal here-" She pointed to some kind of bird just above Draco's head. "It's extinct, I'm sure. But even though it's just a picture, it looks like it's about to take flight! So realistic... And that mural of the sea, the way the..."

"Granger, quiet!" Draco hissed, bringing his finger to his lips. She narrowed her eyes at him, opening her mouth to protest, but he shook his head and pointed to the mouth of the cavern. Voices echoed from it, laughs and yells. The Captain's eyes widened, and she jumped to where they'd come through, dragging Draco with her. The small, round enclosure was well-lit from the hole above, and rain dropped onto their heads once more, but it was concealed from the rest of the cave, and there was enough of a gap for both Hermione and Draco to peer through, and see who else had found the cave.

 _Please let it be Steve, please let it be one of my crew,_  Hermione pleaded to herself.  _Please, please, plea- oh God damn it._

A group of five men, dressed completely in black and holding torches high in their hands, swaggered into the room. From their belts swung the sharp, thick blades of swords and axes, and the silver glints of hidden guns. Two of them gripped a young boy, bedraggled and terrified. Every part of his bronze body that wasn't clothed was covered in large bruises and small cuts. They were too far away to see him properly, but Draco was sure the boy was crying.

The group was led by a woman taller than anyone Draco had ever seen. Her skin was as black as night, and covered in long, pinkish scars. Her lips were twisted in a permanent scowl, her dark brown hair braided around a thick rope. Similar weapons to the rest of her crew hung from a green sash around her waist, and she was dressed similarly to her crew as well. In her hand she gripped a long staff, in the shape of a snake. Its eyes burnt as though they were on fire, yet the stick didn't smoulder. Was it some kind of magic that made the eyes do that? Draco wondered. The cavern had already convinced him that magic could exist. With every step the great woman took, she pounded the staff into the ground in front of her. It made a loud, echoing bang with every pound, despite the soft terrain it landed in. When the woman reached the centre of the room, she suddenly turned her head to the place Hermione and Draco were hiding in. The two shrank back against the rock, even though they knew she couldn't see them. As soon as she had turned, she turned away, but Draco couldn't shake the feeling she'd known they were there. And her eyes... they were bright yellow, the colour of the sun, but there had been something foggy... something unfocused about them...

The men stood slightly away from her, looking about the room with wide eyes. Even the boy seemed to forget the danger he was in, basking in the beauty of the cavern. The woman was the only one who seemed unimpressed by the shining pictures.

"The room," she spoke in a dreadfully cold, hissing voice, in a tone of such malice and power that Draco felt like sitting down. "Describe it to me."

All the men jumped, and one spoke up. "It's... it's large, and it's made of black rock, a-and..."

"I know that, you idiot. I can gather how large the room is, what it's made of, the sand and water beneath my feet, every inch of the rock I can sense... What I want to know is, what is on the rocks that is making you all so excited?" There was a bite to her voice that made everybody who heard her wince.

Another man spoke, his voice nasally. "Ah, the walls are covered with... with paintings and writing, ma'am."

"Paintings... What of?" Now she sounded slightly interested. "Is there a ship? A ship with black sails?"

"Yes, yes there's a pretty big picture of a ship with black sails."

"I knew it... What is around the ship? A map?"

"N..No. There's a bit of writing, but... it's in some foreign language." The man yelped as a knife whizzed past his ear.

"Of course it is, you idiot!" She woman snapped, her next words laced with sarcasm. "What, did you think that a bunch of colonialists decided to stop by and randomly cover a cave in art? These are the directions we need to find the Chamber of Secrets."

"I thought the maps were...?"

"No, the maps led us here. They were a test. Even more so since Malfoy's idiotic crew went and burnt down their ship." The woman closed her eyes and exhaled, as if she were trying to control herself. "That's why we brought the boy. Have him say the directions out loud. I can translate it from there."

There was a bit of a scuffle as the men tried to command the boy to read the writing beneath the ship- coincidentally, Hermione noted, it was the same writing that she had written down earlier. She'd known it would be important. The child didn't understand English, and even after the men had managed to somehow get the message through, the boy just shook his head, repeating the same words over and over. He yelped when one of the sailors moved around and held a cutlass to his chest.

"Speak, you little rat, or I'll run you through." The man growled, and surprisingly the boy understood, and nodded.

His tiny, shaking voice barely filled the cavern as he stammered through reading the text on the walls. Draco felt sorry for him, not even able to comprehend the fear the child must have been feeling. As the boy recited the words, the woman nodded, lips curved in a twisted smile. "Yes," she would murmur, "that's right... And so..."

Once he'd finished reading, the boy looked at the surrounding pirates hopefully, thinking they would let him go. But the woman had no intention of letting him live.

Stuffing his fist into his mouth to stop himself from screaming, Draco watched in horror as the woman pulled a gun out of its holster as fast as lightning and pulled the trigger. He closed his eyes tightly as he heard the gun go off, barely masked by a clap of thunder from the squall still happening outside. The boy didn't yell out, he just made a slight choking sound and a thud as he fell to the floor. Draco wanted to throw up.

"Did I hit him?"

"Yes, ma'am. Right in the neck. Blood's everywhere."

"Damn. I was aiming for the head. I'll have to work on my aim." Draco still didn't open his eyes as he heard the shuffling of the pirates leaving the cave. "Right, it's back to the ship, then onward to the Chamber of Secrets! The Dark Pirate Lord will be glad to hear of our accomplishments!" Cries of triumph and laughter echoed the bloodthirsty captain's departure.

Draco didn't move, didn't look, as he heard Hermione's feet running to the boy who lay dying, maybe already dead in the water. He registered that her voice was talking to the boy, but didn't hear what she said, speaking in hushed tones of encouragement and sympathy to a body beyond all hope, the only response Draco could hear being choking, gasping pants from a throat unable to breathe.

Draco's body went numb as it suddenly realised the danger he was in, the violence that would be surrounding him, the deaths he would have to experience for every minute he stayed on board Hermione's ship, or any other pirate ship, for that matter. He wanted to go home, God, he wanted to go home.

"… Malfoy? Mr. Malfoy!" Draco opened his eyes and looked over at Hermione, who was calling to him from beside the boy. Blood had seeped into the water on the floor that surrounded her, tainting it red. Draco couldn't see from his view, but he was sure the child's chest, neck, and head were stained with the same red hue. Hermione must have been touching the boy at some point; her hands were covered with blood as well. Draco bent over and retched. "Mr. Malfoy, are you okay?"

Draco threw up again. "… He's dead, isn't he? The little boy?" Draco's voice was hoarse, and it pained his throat to speak.

"Yes." Hermione's voice was empty of emotion. "She hit an artery, he died almost instantly."

"Why did she kill him?" Draco asked. "She didn't have to kill him, he did as she asked!"

"Probably didn't want anybody to know about this place, or that they were here." Hermione said. She shook her head. "If they're here, on this island, then we're in danger. The crew aren't prepared for a fight. We need to get back to the beach, get back onto the boat, and get the fuck out of here." She knelt, pushing her hands under the boys' dead body: one cradling his neck, the other a firm grasp under his knees.

"What are you doing?"

"We're taking him back to the beach. I couldn't help him... the least I can do is bury his body." Hermione replied, and though her eyes were aimed at Draco, she looked straight past him.

* * *

"What are we going to do, Steve?" One of the pirates who had gone with Steve and Lei over the rocks fretted, tugging at their ear.

"I dunno? What d'we do, Lei?" Steve asked, turning on the boy who had suggested they go in the first place.

"We need to keep calm." Lei said, taking several deep breaths. "There's no way of telling the Captain, so we should just go back to where we left Carlos and the others, and wait for Ginny, Hermione, and Draco to get back. As soon as they get back, we can tell them what we've seen, and then Hermione will know what to do."

"But what if they find the Captain? What if they ambush them?" Another of pirates whined.

"We have no way of preventing that. We just need to... hope for the best." Lei said, leading the group back over the rocks.

When they got there, they noticed that one of the two boats they'd used to get to shore was missing. Instantly, they panicked, doing a head count of the people on the beach.

"What happened?" Steve asked one of the pirates, who were playing some form of poker.

"Ginny had an argument with Hermione again." They explained. "She took the boat and is going home."

"I bet five silver pieces she went back to the ship." Said one of the poker playing pirates.

"I bet six she comes back to the beach before we leave." Said the person sitting next to him.

"Oh my God." Moaned Steve, looking back at his group of friends. "Did you 'ear that? Tha' means Miss 'ermione is on her own. With Draco Dragon. Who can't even lift a sword!"

"Don't worry," Lei reassured his friend, "I'm sure the Captain can look after herself. We've got nothing to be worried about. Look, even the sky is showing us that everything will be alright!" The boy pointed up to the sky, as the clouds parted and the sun shone through.

"It's the Captain!" Somebody yelled suddenly, making Lei and Steve spin around (getting sand on the poker players cards in the process, the men yelling in protest). "She's got somebody... they're covered in blood!"

"Draco Dragon!" Steve gasped as he and the others ran to the figures emerging from the forest. Steve breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Draco stumbling out of the forest behind Hermione, looking ill, but otherwise fine. The bloody body Hermione held in her hands was one that Steve didn't recognise, but his heart broke when he saw how young the victim was. "Cap'n, what happened?"

"Basil Izk is on the island." Hermione replied, turning to another sailor and ordering them to fetch her a shovel. "She was looking for the same thing we were. We found it first, and then we hid when she came into the cavern. There was writing on the walls, she had this boy read it, and shot him once she learnt what it said." When the sailor returned with an old, rusty shovel, Hermione carefully deposited the dead child into Steve's arms and set about building the boys grave.

Steve looked down at the boy, holding back a sob. The child's bright blue eyes were wide open, still filled with the terror of seeing a gun aimed at him. His mouth was open, blood spread around his lips, cheeks, and jaw like the juice of a berry. The bullet wound was almost in the centre of his neck, blood drying around it and making the hole seem too big. Everything about him was too small... too young...

"Mr. Malfoy, fetch me a rock to use to mark his grave." Hermione ordered as Steve lowered the boy into the hole. As she began to pour the sand over the boy, she whispered, "I'm sorry. You deserved so much more than to die in this way." She had just poured the last of the sand over where the body lay when Draco rolled over a rock, which they positioned just behind where his head lay. Everybody looked down at their feet as they stood in silence, honouring the small boys passing.

After a minute of silence that felt like an eternity, Hermione broke it by raising her head, and saying, "We should leave before they find us here. Where's Ginny?"

"She left a message with me, Captain," Carlos replied. "She said that she's had enough and she's taking a boat and going home, and that you're a bastard with a one-track mind who has no care what-so-ever for your crew, and that she wouldn't care if you were... I think the phrase was 'stabbed through with a spear'... and that she doesn't like your chocolate. No offense, Captain." They added as an afterthought.

Hermione inhaled sharply. "Oh. Well... If that's the way she feels, I suppose there's no point in looking for her. Ready the boat, we leave immediately."

As the sailors hurried about pushing the small rowing boat to sea, nobody noticed the damp set of footprints that headed back into the jungle, away from them and towards the crew of The Diary...

* * *

"Hermione!" Ginny yelled as she stumbled through the jungle. "Hermione where are you?" She should never have left the pair. God, Ginny felt like a fool. Hermione could be bleeding to death, Malfoy wouldn't be able to help her, he'd probably already be dead, what had Ginny been thinking? "Hermione!" Her voice portrayed her desperation. She thundered through the jungle, pushing back trees and crushing several beetles under her toes. Parrots flew away, squawking in shock as Ginny flew past, screaming her friends name. "Hermione! Hermione! Hermione!"

She reached the part of the jungle they'd argued in, and turned in a full circle, looking, watching, searching for a glimpse of brown anywhere, or Malfoy's blond hair, which would certainly stand out in the forest. "Hermione! Hermione!" Ginny took a step backwards, and another, and another, and...

Ginny gasped as she bumped into something, something that definitely wasn't a tree. A hand grabbed her as she spun around, and found herself face-to-face... or rather, face-to-stomach... with one of the last people she'd ever want to meet alone in a jungle. Ginny gulped, looking up into the yellow eyes of one of Voldemort's most trusted followers, Basil Izk, who was holding Ginny's shoulder so tightly that it felt as though it would break off.

"Who is this?" The tall, cold Captain asked, though it sounded more like a command to Ginny. "Identify yourself."

Ginny hesitated, thinking that if she was quiet then perhaps the fearsome pirate would think she was a tree or something. Deep down Ginny knew it wouldn't work, but it was her last hope. She cursed when, quick as a whip, the woman drew her gun out of its holster and shoved it against Ginny's head, the barrel pressing into her skin. Ginny's skin turned ice cold. The gun was still warm. Her mind raced at the thought of who the gun could have shot. "Identify yourself, or I will not hesitate to blast your brains out."

"My name is Ginevra Weasley." Ginny answered, in the most confident voice she could muster with a gun against her head. Basil gave a curt nod, and moved the gun from her temple. Ginny breathed a sigh of relief, but as soon as she did that, Basil turned the gun around and hit Ginny on the head with its handle. Before Ginny could register what was happening, everything around her disappeared and she slipped into unconsciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a little short, I know, but the chapters get longer when the plot gets heavier, I promise! The fic is also posted on ff.net, but I've decided to start uploading it on here, too. I should be updating every Friday!


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